Published: September 30, 2009 09:27 am      

Real men wear Pink

Firefighters to wear pink helmets in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness

By Samantha Swindler / Managing Editor

When Corbin firefighters started fundraising to purchase new pink — yes, pink — fire helmets, they thought they’d be lucky to get enough money for three or four men to wear them. 

Yet, in just a few week’s time, the department collected $5,930 from the community — enough to purchase 29 helmets in honor of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month and send several hundred dollars directly to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

Businesses provided $200 sponsorships to purchase the specially-designed pink helmets for the department. The maker of the helmets, Lion Apparel, is donating proceeds from pink helmets’ sales to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation on behalf of each purchaser as part of a special promotion through October. 

“Firefighter Jack Partin brought this to my attention. He saw it in Firehouse Magazine and he came in and asked me what I thought about it,” Chief Barry McDonald said of the project. “I was tickled to death about it.”

Starting Thursday and throughout the month of October, firefighters will be wearing the pink helmets when responding to fire alarms, wrecks and any other events outside of structure fires (where soot would quickly fade the helmets from pink to gray). Each helmet will also bear the name and logo of a sponsoring business.

“When we started, we thought we’d be lucky to get three or four (helmets),” Partin said. “The story you ran originally, we had people calling us wanting to give us money. We were amazed by how big a response we got.”

Thirty local businesses (and one individual) contributed to make the program possible. 

“We read about it in the newspaper,” said Vicki Broussard, activities director with The Heritage Nursing & Rehabilitation Facility. “We’ve had several residents that have battled breast cancer, and I thought it would be the appropriate thing for our facility to sponsor a pink helmet, and it’s near and dear to my heart as well.”

The Heritage fundraised through bake sales and other events to purchase a helmet sponsorship — and Broussard said the firefighters will look good throughout October. 

“Real men wear pink,” she said with a laugh. 

After October, sponsoring businesses will have the chance to display the helmets at their offices. Next October, businesses will have the option to renew their sponsorships, and all money collected will go straight to charity. 

“Actually, for the whole month of September, we’ve been doing a Susan G. Koman fundraising event because our company actually sponsored the Race for the Cure in Lexington, and so this is something that we’ve kind of put our arms around and really wanted to make an impact in,” said Sara Pendergraft, chief customer service officer with Forcht Bank. “We actually have a breast cancer survivor who works with us in the main branch, and so it’s something that’s close to our hearts because there’s a lot of people who have watched her go through everything she went through, and now she’s in remission.”

Other helmet sponsors included Community Trust Bank, Pepsi-Cola Bottling Company, Tri-State Institute of Hair Design, W.D. Bryant, Elysian Health Care, Tom Blair State Farm Agent, Owens Auto Parts, Save-Rite Pharmacy, Curves, Hometown Bank, District Judge Skip Hammons, Grab-N-Go, Beef O’Bradys, Corbin Materials, Attorney Jason Williams, Lexington Cancer Clinic, Oak Tree Hospital, Wallens Towing, TECO Coal, Cumberland Valley Bank, Amy E. Brock DMD PSC, Walgreens, and an individual donation from Mikkah Davis in honor of survivor Marjorie Hammons Tucker. Other project sponsors included Looks To Kill Salon, Central Automotive, Creative Touch Jewelers, Mike Sparks and House of S&J. 

4ever Graphics owner Darryl Baker, who is also chief of West Knox Volunteer Fire Department, provided all the company logo work on the helmets at no charge.