Sunny skies and an ocean breeze welcomed B4BC to Huntington Beach at the Honda US Open of Surfing presented by O’Neill last week. The B4BC booth was looking better than ever on the sand this year with a spacious 10×20 booth space that was provided by our friends at Warner Bros. We were able to make good use of this space for our first ever “B4BC lounge” that included some comfy inflatable furniture for our booth visitors to come hang out and relax while filling out our “Test Your Breast Knowledge” sweepstake surveys, learn about breast cancer awareness, and provided a more comfortable environment for people to come share their stories with us.
Our educational booth was a part of the WB S3 Supergirl community that ran in conjunction with the Open. The S3 Jam featured a junior jam surf contest, skate vert and street contests, and a snow jam where top female pros came out and threw down some amazing riding.
We were also stoked to have some of those top ladies come by the booth to show their support and to get educated. Some of the athletes included skateboarder Holly Lyons, surfers Claire Bevilacqua,
Kassia Meador, and O’Neill girls Sage Erickson, Kyla Langen, and Malia Manuel (who by the way became the youngest female surfer ever to win the US Open of Surfing at the age of 14-so congratulations to Malia!)
Also, in conjunction with the US Open of Surfing, Havaiana’s and Surfer/Surfing Magazine hosted a
B4BC benefit at an off-site location called “The Escape” by Macy’s. The afternoon included an insane
product raffle, music from the talented Mr. Donavon Frankenreiter, and plenty of cute Havaiana sandals to go around for everyone! B4BC would like to extend sincere thanks to our friends at Havaianas, Mr. James Lynch and Surfer/Surfing Magazine for such a wonderful evening!
By far the best moment of the weekend came when a previous booth visitor stopped by to show us all of her hair! Last year when this wonderful woman stopped by the booth she had been going through an intense chemo-treatment. Her name is Denise and when she came to us last year, she wanted to thank B4BC for possibly saving her life. Denise had learned how to do a breast self-exam (BSE) at our booth over 4 years ago and it influenced her to take her health into her own hands by performing monthly BSE’s. In November of 2006 she found a “pea size” lump that turned out to be cancerous. After a double mastectomy and six months of treatment–Denise is cancer free! She visits the B4BC booth every year at the US Open to say hello, get some hugs, and to pick up some of exam cards for her lady friends! B4BC is incredibly blessed to see her doing well and Denise wants to encourage all of you to do those self-exams ladies!
B4BC would like to thank the following fabulous volunteers that helped us with our educational outreach throughout the weekend. Thanks Kimiyo, Erica, Ling, Kristie, Kerry, Sarah, Brianna, Lindsey and Jessie for all of your awesome work!
For contest results and more info on the US Open of Surfing, click here.
