If you’re like me and started snowboarding in the late 90s or the early 2000s, there’s never been a time that you didn’t know that self checks are important. There’s never been a time that you didn’t realize that young people, both men and women, could get breast cancer. And there’s never been a time that you didn’t understand that the best form of breast cancer prevention is a healthy and active lifestyle. It’s really hard to think that before 1996 this wasn’t common knowledge, but that’s the way that it was. The awareness and understanding of breast cancer that we have now, did not exist, but over the past twenty-five years, Boarding for Breast Cancer completely impacted the cultural consciousness of this disease. In the last two-and-a-half decades, the B4BC staff, their athletes, their volunteers, and their ambassadors have made these things common knowledge. In doing so, they have changed the lives of thousands of people and increased breast health and breast cancer awareness in incredible ways.
On December 16th, the snowboarding community came together at Copper Mountain, CO during the Dew Tour to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Boarding for Breast Cancer–to celebrate the overwhelming impact that B4BC has had on our community in the past twenty-five years.
Founded in 1996 by Lisa Hudson, Dawn Kish, and Kathleen Gasparini, over the past two-and-a-half decades, B4BC has worked tirelessly to increase awareness and education in the public through events, fundraisers, programming, and outreach. When they embarked on their mission, breast cancer was considered a disease of the eldery; the fact that it could affect young adults in their twenties and thirties was not at all in the general consciousness. Through the organizations efforts–beginning with annual music and snowboard festivals at Sierra-at-Tahoe and expanding to encompass a plethora of activations and collaborations all over the world, as well as support for those fighting breast cancer as well as survivors of the disease–B4BC has affected thousands and thousands of lives. On Thursday night at Copper, the snowboarding community came out in full force to celebrate the organization’s accomplishments. The support ran deep: Danny Davis and his new wife Marge, Aaron Blatt, Luke Winkelmann, Zeb Powell, Kyle Mack, Kelsey Boyer, Melissa Riitano and the entire Save A Brain crew, Christine Savage, Ari Morrone, Ashley Giangregorio, and the BTBounds crew, Red and the Gerard clan, Julia Spadaro, Holm Boii, Annie Fast, Kim Woozy, Jodie Nelson, Melissa Gullotti, Taren Dolbashian, Nirvana Ortanez and Ted Borland, and many more. B4BC’s Lisa Hudson, Megan Pischke, Maggie Gonazlez, and team rider, Jamie Anderson, were on hand to lead the celebration and spoke to the crowd about the non-profit’s work.
The silent auction was buzzing. Glasses were cheersed. A short video about the history of B4BC played for everyone. And then B4BC special events director Curt Sterner introduced the Nuns of Brixton, a Clash cover band. It was not only a night of celebration but a meaningful reunion for everyone at Copper that evening to celebrate the meaningful and life-changing work of the Boarding for Breast Cancer crew. Huge thanks to the B4BC crew, who’s passion and drive has created the foundation for understanding breast health, breast cancer prevention, and breast cancer support withing snowboarding, greater action sports, and beyond. In the past twenty-five years, the accomplishments of B4BC are innumerable–here’s to what they will the the next twenty-five and more.
