A mix of celebration, laughter and dessert with cancer awareness for Pink Hatters 2023

There was one upside to being one of the few men at the Pink Hatters & Friends annual dinner this year, comedian Dan Viola says.

No line at the restroom. Ta-dum-dum.

While humor might seem out of place for something as potentially sobering as an event to celebrate cancer survivors and remember those who have died from the awful disease, this event was a mix of light-hearted laughter and thoughtful recognition.

Viola was in the program line-up after a survivor recognition of those who have survived significant milestones of one year and beyond, and that followed guest speaker Dr. Lori Medeiros, who specializes in breast diseases and breast surgery. 

The key importance of having the event is to “celebrate our community’s survivors and continue to fundraise funds for our local community,” nurse manager Olivia Barren said. 

She and fellow nurse managers from United Memorial Medical Center’s maternity department came together to put the event together, she said. There were nearly 300 people in attendance, made up of about 50 percent cancer survivors, plus their family, friends, and hospital staff.

“We’ve had really good success with fundraising. And I think at the end of the day, just getting everyone together and being able to celebrate the success, and all the hard work that we put into it, and everyone's survivor’s story, it’s really great,” she said. “We start with the basket raffle. That's our primary source of fundraising. We did a dessert dash, which we were able to raise just under $2,000 with the dessert dash, which I'd never even heard of before. Each table fundraised just within their dinner table, and they put money in an envelope …  We had all the way up to $147 was our winning table, and they got to go first. So we raised a lot of money in a very short amount of time with that, so they get to go and pick desserts first. And then the second highest envelope, and next and then so on and so forth.”

Thanks to donations from local bakeries and restaurants, those tables with the highest contributions then dashed to select one of 37 desserts of their choice, she said. It made for a fun ending to dinner and a good way to raise more money for the cause. 

Aside from the fundraising aspect, Barren has a deeply personal reason for her passion: “My mom is actually a breast cancer survivor,” she said.

“And so it’s very meaningful to me,” she said. “I’m the OB Department nurse manager, so we do a lot of education for obstetric patients about breast cancer and early screening. And it just hits home, mostly because of my mom.” 

The basket raffle, featuring themed baskets of various items, involved contributions from hospital workers and members of the community, she said. 

While attendees still wear pink attire and many wear colorful fun pink hats, the main theme of breast cancer awareness for the month of October has expanded to include colon cancer as well.  

“All of us wear pink hats to honor breast cancer. But this year, we're talking a lot about — our keynote speaker is actually a survivor of colon cancer,” Barren said. “So not just breast cancer, anybody with cancer stories. But we do focus a lot on the breast cancer side of things.

“I really love being super involved. I love getting together with a community. I love getting together with my friends outside of work to really network and hang out in a low-stresson  environment compared to being in the hospital every day where we're dealing with life and death.,” she said. “Here, we get to have fun, eat wonderful food and raise money for our community.”