By Michele J. Kuhn
Stacey Donovan and Dr. Bokran Won share a passion for women’s health.
Donovan has been an integral part of the Paint the Town Pink campaign, initially as a volunteer and for the last three years as an employee of Meridian Health. Every day Won, as the director of the Women’s Center at Riverview Medical Center in Red Bank and Bayshore Community Hospital in Holmdel, sees the results of the campaign to increase awareness of the need for mammograms.
The women will be honored for their work and dedication at Riverview and Bayshore hospitals’ Care to Give Council’s Party for Pink at 7 p.m. Friday, May 30, at the Navesink Country Club in Middletown. The event benefits the Pink Fund, which provides free mammograms to those who are uninsured or under-insured.
Donovan and Won are both thrilled to be have been chosen for the honor.
Won said she was “shocked” when she learned she was going to be honored. “There are so many women who are doing what I do, dedicating their time,” she said. “But, I feel extremely, extremely honored.”
Donovan, who calls herself “a behind-the-scenes kind of gal,” is humbled to have been chosen by “some very special people at Meridian and the Care to Give Council.
“It’s very special to me because in many ways, Paint the Town Pink has been an amazing gift in my life. I have had the opportunity to meet and work with so many amazing people in the Meridian Health family and in the community. It really has become a campaign driven by people in the community who have reached out to each other and supported each other.
“The importance of Paint the Town Pink is that each year it continues to grow, not just in numbers, but in the ways it affects the community,” she said. “It’s amazing.”
Donovan said her parents, and especially her late father, taught her at an early age “that it’s important to give and you are how you treat others at the end of the day. Paint the Town Pink has been a fantastic way for me to use the things I’ve learned and grew up with in terms of giving back to the community.”
Donovan has been involved with the campaign since its inception, was chairperson for five years and now is a member of the Care to Give Council. She has taken on a wide range of tasks for the effort – everything from decorating cars in shades of pink to going out to speak to individuals and groups in the area about Paint the Town Pink.
“No matter where I travel … it’s wonderful to see those little sprinkles of pink and see how happy businesses are to participate and people are eager in the churches and schools to get involved.
“I can’t stress enough that Paint the Town Pink … is a community effort. It’s something I am so proud to be a part of because I can see the impact it makes in so many lives,” Donovan said.
Won, a radiologist, said that the money raised through the Paint the Town Pink campaign and the Party for Pink and used to fund mammograms for uninsured and under-insured woman has been an “important part of what the community can give to a woman in need.”
Many times when those who are diagnosed with breast cancer are asked why they waited to get a mammogram, “they tell us because they have no insurance. So to be able to provide support so they can get their mammograms and know they are OK is extremely important …It’s priceless,” Won said.
The awareness for the need to get mammograms has built each year as the Paint the Town Pink has forwarded the message. “People need to be educated,” Won said. “I think every year with this event, more and more people know about this program.
“During the last two or three years, the awareness has definitely been heightened because of the advertisement and people have been talking about it, both inside and outside the hospital,” she said. “I have to give the marketing people credit – their hard work is paying off.”
Tickets for the Party for Pink are $90 per person. Tickets and additional information is available by calling 855-PINK-411.
