Union Raising Money for Breast Cancer Awareness Month

SCHENECTADY, N.Y. – In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the Union College Student-Athlete Advisory Committee is partnering with the Kenney Center for Community Engagement and Outreach and Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity to raise money for this important cause.
 
The initiative is behind led by junior Aiden Markoff, member of the Union College football team whose mother, Cicily Ilg, was diagnosed with breast cancer.
 
Students will be tabling at Reamer Campus Center from Monday (10/17) to Thursday (10/20) from 11 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. to solicit donations and sell limited edition pink Union t-shirts for only $10 each. Shirts will also be sold at several Union home athletic events on Saturday, including:

• Football vs. Hobart, 12 pm
• Women’s Volleyball vs. RIT, 2 pm
• Women’s Soccer vs. RIT, 2 pm
• Men’s Hockey vs. Connecticut, 4 pm

All proceeds from this week’s events and sales of t-shirts will benefit BreastCancer.org.  To make a donation or to purchase a t-shirt, you can also visit our specialized link. All donations and purchases through the end of October will be matched 100%, so every dollar counts!
 
From Cicely Ilg:
 
“Early detection saved my life. I was a year overdue for a mammogram because when COVID shut the world down I didn’t have a PCP and getting one during that time was nearly impossible. I was (and still am) a very healthy person and did everything a woman is supposed to do to avoid breast cancer. But this disease is sneaky and that is why mammograms are so important. The key is to find it, hopefully early. It’s not worth looking backwards, but finding my tumor when they did was just in time before it turned invasive.

Breast cancer remains the second leading cause of cancer death in America but I believe early detection will continue to bring these numbers down. I would strongly emphasize to all of you to ask the women in their lives if they have had their scheduled mammogram. And if they have not because they feel they don’t have access to this life-saving test, it is easy in almost every state to access testing for free.”