KF volleyball digs for a cure
Published 9:57 pm Saturday, October 4, 2014
The fight against breast cancer is a personal thing for many people, including many involved in the King’s Fork High School volleyball program.
The program enters its third year raising breast cancer awareness and generating funds to fight the disease by holding its Pink-Out event on Tuesday at King’s Fork called Dig for a Cure.
“This year is probably bigger than we’ve ever done it,” KF girls’ volleyball coach Sarah Porter said, as she has worked with parents to help get the word out.
Tuesday’s event will feature varsity volleyball games against visiting Heritage High School, with the King’s Fork girls’ and boys’ teams decked out in pink uniforms, representing the color associated with breast cancer awareness.
During the games, students will be selling baked goods, ribbons and other breast cancer awareness items, with the proceeds going to Susan G. Komen Tidewater.
“In between the two games, what we are planning on doing is recognizing the survivors that we know within our core group of volleyball players,” Porter said.
As of Friday evening, the group of survivors set to be recognized had grown to 12, all of whom are related in one way or another to players on the King’s Fork teams.
Porter said though she had always wanted to organize these Pink-Out events, she gained inspiration after breast cancer became prominent in her own family.
“My mother in-law was diagnosed with breast cancer and my mother also,” she said, noting these diagnoses came in the same year, 2012.
But she also noted it is hard to find a person who has not been affected by the disease in some way, which is what makes Tuesday’s event an act of community outreach.
“I think people should come out just because breast cancer, cancer in general, just has such a huge impact on families,” Porter said.
Spectators will have the opportunity to make their own donations to Susan G. Komen.
Porter and her players have already been hard at work leading up to Tuesday.
“We’ve been fundraising for the past month,” she said. “We’ve been selling the ribbons, pins, we’re selling T-shirts and a bunch of different things to donate to Susan G. Komen.”
As of Friday evening, $715 had been raised.
Porter invited King’s Fork staff to come out on Tuesday and donate money, as well.
When all fundraising efforts related to the Pink-Out event have concluded, Porter said the goal is to have reached $1,500.
The King’s Fork girls’ team will face Heritage at 5:30 p.m., and the boys’ team will follow at 7 p.m.
Tickets for the games can be bought at the door. The price is $6 for adults and $4 for children 11 and under.