Friday is the perfect day to dust off the plaid you’ve had in your closet and support prostate cancer awareness.
Prostate Cancer Canada is holding its fifth-annual Plaid for Dad Awareness Campaign on Friday.
To date, the campaign has raised approximately $1.6 million in the first four years of existence, and volunteer chair of the Saskatchewan chapter, Robin Speers, joined 650 CKOM’s Gormley on Tuesday afternoon to talk about the initiative.
“It’s a campaign around the Father’s Day season,” he said. “To raise awareness for the one in seven Canadian men that will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime.”
Speers said that businesses can sign up and donate on the group’s website, and that supporters can post photos wearing their plaid to social media using #PlaidForDad to show their support.
He says that within the past 25 years, Prostate Cancer Canada has done research and has been able to bring the survival rate up significantly.
“If you are diagnosed early, survivability today is almost 100 per cent. However, if caught late, we’re still losing about 11 Canadian men a day, or 4,000 a year when they’re diagnosed in that advanced stage.”
He says all it takes is a conversation with your doctor and family, and getting that survivability number up for the disease.
“Raising dollars on a fun event like Plaid for Dad this Friday, you can see the tangible outcomes (and) the improvements that are happening.”