Dig For Life, Pink Up programs expand offerings to include colon, lung and prostate screenings

Saint Francis Medical Center's Dig For Life and Pink Up programs have recently expanded to offer community members screenings for not only breast cancer, but also colon, lung and prostate cancers.

Dig For Life, a program founded in 2000 by Southeast Missouri State University's then-volleyball coach Cindy Gannon and sponsored by Saint Francis, and Pink Up, a program initiated by the hospital in 2010, help provide free mammograms for individuals in the area who may not be able to afford regular checkups. Last year the programs raised a record-breaking $251,000, according to vice president of the Saint Francis Foundation Jimmy Wilforth.

"Dig For Life and the Pink Up movement were started in order to be able to say, 'Don't let finances be a part of you not getting your screenings,'" he says.

With this funding, Wilforth says the program was able to help purchase a 3-D mammogram machine last year. Equipment was replaced and a mobile mammography unit became available for women who couldn't afford screenings or couldn't make it to the hospital in general in Bollinger, Mississippi and Stoddard counties.

And with the uptick in funds raised in the Pink Up program, Wilferth says the Foundation was able to look past breast cancer and provide assistance for services in relation to other major cancers.

"We looked at what are the top four cancers in our area that are the killers, are the biggest problematic cancers in our area, and that's prostate, colon, lung and breast," he says. "So we put together a program where we could offer screenings [for each]."

Steadily increasing contributions from the community have allowed the program to continue to grow and succeed, Wilferth says.

"The community has gotten behind us and we've been so blessed with the funding of this that we can do more," he says. "We can partner with the University of Missouri and their mobile mammography unit and we can go out to some of the poorest counties in our service area and say, 'We're coming to you, come and get your screenings.' And it's one testimony after another how successful that was and how appreciative that community was that we came to them."

Wilferth says opening up the program to offer screenings for other cancers not only will help more people throughout the community, but also will help draw more support for the program and its mission.

"You don't have to look very far to find someone who's been affected by one of these four cancers in our service area. So everybody's affected," he says. "You're going to be passionate about what you've lived through, and that's why expanding this out just almost covers everybody. Everybody has a connection with one of these four cancers, unfortunately."

As time goes on, Wilferth says he hopes to see the programs continue to grow and help more people throughout the area.

"Each campaign every year just continues to grow, and you think sometimes these campaigns kind of have a life span and they kind of phase themselves out, but Dig for Life and Pink Up have been around for years," he says. "This is something that just continues to grow, and last year was our all-time record amount for donations coming in, and I look for this year to top that, which is phenomenal. All we'll do is continue to provide more services and continue to go to those who can't physically make it to us."

Being a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) Saint Francis is able to provide additional services for patients with financial needs if a lump or something out of the ordinary is discovered during a screening. Dig For Life and Pink Up are able to provide mammograms and other smaller procedures like biopsies or ultrasounds, but Wilferth says the medical center is there to back up patients if more needs to be done.

"If there's going to be surgery that's necessary, we're going to look into our patient assistance program just because there's more wherewithal to be able to take that person all the way through," he says. "We're going to take them through regardless. They're not going to know where the funds are going to come from, but when it gets to some of those higher dollar things, if they're coming in for radiation and chemo or something like that, obviously one case would wipe out the Dig For Life and Pink Up fund, but that's why we have our patient assistance, that's why we're not-for-profit."

Wilferth attributes the success of the medical center's campaigns to the community and faith within the organization.

"We are so blessed here, I believe we're right in the center of God's will in providing care to the least of these, that's straight out of Scripture, we didn't come up with that," he says. "Sometimes I'm blown away at the generosity of our community and at the productivity of our campaigns because man can't create this -- God's in this, and he's blessing us, and as a result we can turn right around and bless others."

lyoung@semissourian.com

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