BY KIRSTEN E. PAULSON
A Flushing community organization is getting a helping hand in its effort to fight breast cancer.
Korean Community Services (KCS), located at 35-56 159th St. in Flushing, has been awarded a one-year, $30,000 grant from the Avon Breast Health Outreach Program, which is part of the Avon Breast Cancer Crusade.
The grant will fund the Step Up for Healthy Women program at KCS, which seeks to educate women and refer them to low-cost or free mammograms and clinical breast exams in their own neighborhoods. It will also provide health navigation services to Korean immigrant women, and will host monthly breast cancer screening events.
Since the program began in July 2014, it has reached and educated more than 1,000 women on breast cancer detection, and has referred more than 400 for mammograms and exams.
“We are very honored and excited that the Avon Breast Cancer Crusade shares our passion and mission for educating women about the benefits of early detection. We are thrilled that the Avon Breast Cancer Crusade has chosen to support our program,” said Tracey K. Park-Denholm, project coordinator at KCS. “With these funds we will be able to provide monthly breast cancer screening events at local community locations, provide patient navigation services and follow up in Korean, and will allow us to branch out into highly uninsured areas that we have not reached before.”
