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Cancer survivors win contest, donate prize

PROMOTING AWARENESS — Breast cancer survivors Marcella Miller, left, and Sarah Grafton, second from left, presented the Trinity Health System Foundation with a $600 check Wednesday to bolster’s Trinity’s women’s imaging equipment fund. From left are Miller; Grafton; Kayla Campos, patient navigator and mammographer for Trinity’s Images Mammography Center; Kristy Retton, clinical supervisor for Images; and Tyler Porter, donor relations coordinator for the foundation. -- Christopher Dacanay

STEUBENVILLE — Two breast cancer survivors donated their prize money from this winter’s Fourth Street Tree Decorating Competition to Trinity Health System Wednesday to support its breast imaging for women.

Chosen by the Steubenville Cultural Trust and Ken and Becky Perkins of Tri-State Financial Services, Marcella Miller and Sarah Grafton’s tree was decorated to spread education and awareness about the importance of mammograms. The two women received the $500 Sponsor’s Choice award and an extra $100 from $1 community votes.

On hand to receive the $600 check were representatives from the Trinity Health System Foundation, the system’s 501(c)(3) fundraising arm that stewards philanthropic gifts. Catherine Poludniak, the foundation’s director, said the funds will go to Trinity’s women’s imaging equipment fund to “help all women’s imaging and to support any equipment services that can better the patient experience and outcomes for all women’s imaging.”

Also present were representatives from Images Mammography Center, located at Trinity Health System East, including Kristy Retton, clinical supervisor, and Kayla Campos, patient navigator and mammographer.

Miller and Grafton, who both use Trinity for their yearly mammograms, said they chose to donate the money in order to help women by promoting potentially life-saving mammograms, which are x-ray imaging tests to detect signs of cancer in the breast.

The two are also members of Trinity’s Breast Cancer Support Group, which meets on the first Tuesday of every month from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. in the lobby of the Tony Teramana Cancer Center, 3204 Johnson Road.

The group is available for women undergoing, anticipating or finished with treatment, no matter where or when they were diagnosed. The group provides a forum for women with similar experiences to speak with each other, and it occasionally hosts speakers on a variety of topics.

Miller and Grafton said it is rewarding to support other women who are scared during their fight against breast cancer, and it is good to be there with that person in her time of need.

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