Introductory Remarks, Pink Promise Brunch 2015
Introductory Remarks, Pink Promise Brunch 2015
Welcome to the 19th Annual Susan G. Komen Greater Kansas City Pink Promise Brunch. Diagnostic Imaging Centers, P.A. proudly presents today’s celebration of breast cancer survivors, and we are thrilled to bring Christine Clifford, our inspirational speaker, to celebrate with us. We extend a grateful welcome to the 2015-2016 Komen grantees who are with us today, thanking them for the work they do to fulfill the Komen mission here in Kansas City. We are a room of survivors, co-survivors, researchers and workers. Together we are Komen.
Diagnostic Imaging Centers has seen a lot of changes over our years of sponsorship – the brunch and Diagnostic Imaging Centers have both grown and changed. The brunch started as a luncheon in a single small room with less than 50 people. Look how we’ve grown! Diagnostic imaging Centers started as a single office on Troost Ave and while we have grown from our one small office to 7 offices across the city, our commitment to the best in women’s imaging has never wavered. We remain a locally owned and run company of 192 people who share the Komen vision of a world without breast cancer.
In 2015, our commitment to the best means we are expanding our women’s imaging by bringing the latest in low dose 3D mammography technology to our offices. Mammography is still a mainstay in the arsenal against breast cancer, and this latest technology gives us new tools as radiologists, allowing us to do our jobs better. Better is good, but still not perfect.
Our commitment to Komen comes in the form of dollars and time. The physicians and employees of Diagnostic Imaging Centers work with Komen throughout the year as we focus on ways to fulfill that promise of one sister to another. We recognize that commitment is not a one then done proposition.
As Henry Ford said, “Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success”. We work together because we want a world without breast cancer; an end to the need to tell one more woman there is something suspicious in your breast; and end to the need for chemotherapy and radiation and surgery; an end to the loss of our sisters and brothers to this disease. These are our common goals.
Today we come together on this beautiful spring morning of renewal as a community. Each of us here has traveled a different path. For our breast cancer survivors, that path has at times been a roller coaster – one in the dark, without sight of the end. The journey at times has left you feeling isolated and alone – even when surrounded by your loved ones.
But we come together today to remember that there is strength and healing in our togetherness. As Ryunosuke Saturo, a Japanese author, wrote: “Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.” One person fighting their breast cancer; one person researching for better ways to treat and maybe one day to prevent breast cancer; one person supporting their loved one in their journey; one person working tirelessly to fulfill the promise of one sister to another. All of you as one are a powerful force of change and good; but together? We are amazing!
Together is what Komen is all about. We are blessed by the amazing staff of our local Komen affiliate. They understand. They know the power of 1 multiplied. Every ribbon, every dollar, every person committed to fulfill a dream is a part of the Komen ocean.
Beautiful, courageous, strong, committed – welcome to the Komen community. Together we will work until there is a time when not one more life is shortened, not one more daughter or sister or brother is lost, not one more.
That’s our dream.
Together, this courageous ocean will make these dreams a reality.
Originally published 4/20/15 on mammographykc.com.
