Newsletter #73–Sep./Oct. 2002
Breast Friend of the Month
Colorado English teacher Carol Peeples was so inspired by a full-page ad for the Avon 3-Day Breast Cancer Walk that appeared in the Denver Post last year that she immediately registered for the fundraiser. A couple of months before the walk, as she logged her training miles and collected donations from friends and family, she found herself beginning to question the event's corporate sponsorship and administration—particularly when a catalog arrived in the mail hawking an array of Avon 3-Day products, including T-shirts, mugs, makeup compacts, and baby bibs. “Since when did a disease get backseat billing to a makeup company?” her inner cynic wondered. “Since when did breast cancer get exploited to sell so much stuff?”
She silenced her doubts and embarked on the 60-mile walk as planned, only to encounter one corporate plug after another. After the walk, she began poking around on the Internet to uncover some background on the Avon 3-Day and its for-profit producer, Pallotta TeamWorks, when she landed on BCA's Web site and learned about the organization’s “Think Twice Before You Walk” campaign.
“I found the walk and its hype so unsettling—once I was willing to admit that I'd been had by the emotional marketing—that it took me months to come to grips with my actions,” Peeples wrote in an e-mail to BCA. “To make amends to myself, I’ve written up what happened and am trying to sell it as an article to a magazine. Even if this never happens, I’m still going to mail it out to every one of my donors along with a letter of apology.”
Peeples did sell the article, which appeared in the July 2002 issue of the Progressive magazine. Taking a hard look at the fundraising tactics and figures behind the Avon 3-Day, the article gave voice to breast cancer advocates, fellow walkers, and executives from Pallotta TeamWorks and the Avon Breast Cancer Crusade, ultimately confirming Peeples’ concerns about the walk and encouraging readers to be more thoughtful about supporting corporate fundraisers and marketing efforts.
BCA salutes Peeples for having the courage to re-examine her decision to participate in the walk, and for honoring her reservations by pursuing a daunting and often frustrating investigation. She took a valuable lesson from the experience: “I didn’t pay much attention to these companies that had decided to ‘make a difference’ when I signed on,” Peeples admits in her article—but now, she says, “the golden prose of corporate copywriters no longer works on me.”