October was National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, but efforts to find a cure, raise money for research, and spread the word are not just a 31-day occurrence. They are pushed 365 days a year.
Susan Woodring is helping lead those efforts as the new executive director of Pennsylvania Pink Zone. The Pink Zone promotes cancer awareness and empowers survivors.
“It’s really easy to talk about it because I just love it,” says Woodring, who was named to the post in September. “I love being able to help make a difference”
Woodring, a Penn State grad, comes to the post with 34 years of development and alumni relations experience at the university She held a number of positions within the division of development, most recently as the director of development and alumni relations at Penn State Altoona from 2003-17. She served in various development roles on the University Park campus for 20 years, including as the associate director of development with the Eberly College of Science.
Woodring has a strong team standing behind her.
She says the Pink Zone board wants to give away every dollar that is raised and not put money toward many administrative costs.
“I admire the wish to do that and I endorse it,” Woodring says. “I feel so often people are caught up in the money and salaries, but the board of the Pink Zone wants the money to go to help those women who are enduring and being diagnosed with breast cancer”
Woodring says the Pink Zone team has “really committed a lot of time and they’ve invested their hearts and souls into their positions. It is just overwhelming to be to be witness to their beliefs, and seeing what they want the Pink Zone to be and become.”
The Pink Zone has grown greatly the past 10 years, but there is much work ahead.
Woodring says the position has allowed her to build beautiful relationships, and she sees that as the best part of the job.
The executive director’s primary goals for the Pink Zone are to build new relationships, steward current donors, and expand the message of the Pink Zone outside of the Centre Region.
The Pink Zone is not just benefitting those in the local community, but is impacting organizations it has built strong relationships with all around the state.
Beneficiaries include Geisinger-Lewistown Hospital, J.C Blair Memorial Hospital, Kay Yow Cancer Fund, Mount Nittany Medical Center, PA Breast Cancer Coalition, and Penn State Cancer Institute, among others.
“It has been my honor and privilege the last month to be able to deliver checks to these organizations and you just can’t imagine the stories that you get to hear and you can’t imagine the leaps and bounds that these organizations have made because of the gift we have given them,” Woodring says. “It’s really an unbelievable situation for everyone”
The organizations’ primary focuses are breast cancer awareness, education, diagnosis, and treatment.
Over the course of time, $1.6 million has been raised for the Pink Zone in efforts to conquer breast cancer.
“We want to see these women be survivors who go on and do great things,” Woodring says.
To learn more about the Pink Zone, visit papinkzone.org.
