The City of College Park teamed with the Fight Colorectal Cancer organization to host an event on March 9 educating residents on the dangers of colorectal cancer and the importance of getting screened for the disease.
Photo by JALEN WADE
The event took place on a windy day in front of College Park City Hall with tables set up by volunteers and organization members.
“I’m a big believer in all this,” Joel Carlson, a volunteer from the Hollywood neighborhood, said. “My dad had prostate cancer, and so I’ve seen people go through this and [had] awareness of this, and I was very fortunate. My wife and I have health insurance, and our doctors kind of literally forced us to go get, you know, checked every now and then for this, but like, 50% of the people try to just avoid it. And so that’s why I think awareness is a good thing.”
Councilmember Alan Hew (District 1) said resident Ellen Tappin, a member of Fight Colorectal Cancer, approached him last year to request a city proclamation about National Colorectal Cancer Month, which is in March. Tappin reached back out this year to organize this event, Hew said.
Mayor Fazlul Kabir read a city proclamation on Feb. 18 that said, in part, “Observing Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month during the month of March provides a special opportunity to increase awareness and offer education on the importance of early detection and screening of colorectal cancer.”
Hew said raising awareness about the disease is personal to him, as both his wife and mother had colon cancer. He said he wants to help promote and educate College Park residents on the importance of getting tested.
“Something about health and personal issues like this aren’t very well versed in minority communities, so we’re trying to build opportunities for them to learn about it, speak about it, without social pressures and things like that,” Hew said.
Tappin, a colon cancer survivor, headed a booth that was decorated with various pamphlets and note cards with resources and information on getting screened. She also gave away plastic squeeze toys that look like poop emojis with eyes and smiles on them.
Volunteers planted 1,000 blue flags–the color that represents colon cancer–in front of city hall and at College Park United Methodist Church nearby.
The flags represented the 950 people between the ages of 29 and 40 who are expected to die from colon cancer by 2030.
“I’m hoping that people coming into the event today will become aware that colorectal cancer is the No. 2 cause of cancer deaths in the nation,” Tappin said. “It is the No.1 for men and No.2 for women, second behind breast cancer awareness. The goal is to encourage people to get screened.”
Also participating in the event was the group Public Health Beyond Borders, a University of Maryland student/faculty club whose goal is to reduce health disparities around the world and increase awareness about good health practices.
Simran Mulchandani and McKayla Guthrie, two sophomore public health science majors, organized the group’s booth to help educate their peers.
“Getting students aware of that, and local college park members aware that screening is very important, even at the early age, is the awareness for transparency,” Mulchandani said.
At the event, Kabir said the gathering was informative and a good follow-up to the proclamation.
“So in College Park, proclamation is just the first step, but we also need to work on the education piece so that we can make people more aware of it,” Kabir said.
