NJ police cars turn pink for Breast Cancer Awareness Month

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. If that doesn’t seem important to you, consider this: Experts say breast cancer would have a 99% survival rate if only caught in time. That’s why pushing out that message is so important.

Awareness and hammering home the importance of testing can literally save the lives of so many great women.

My mom is a breast cancer survivor. They found it when she was in her late 40s. I’m happy to say she’s now 86 and still here. Because she was tested frequently, never put off appointments, always followed up, she lived to see all four of her grandchildren.

To get any message across, first you have to get people’s attention. That’s where Rod Ryan, founder of Open Road Auto Group, comes in. He has been volunteering and doing auto wraps in pink of police cars from Somerset County towns for several years now. It’s to promote Breast Cancer Awareness month.

Read More: Laps for a Cause at Lawrence, NJ High School for breast cancer

It’s a terrific idea because we’re used to seeing a police car in white, black, or blue. Seeing one in pink is an attention-getter and makes you focus on the cause.

This year, half a dozen jurisdictions in Somerset County are participating. Those are Branchburg, Far Hills, Manville, Peapack-Gladstone, the prosecutor's office and the sheriff's office – will have the pink patrol cars on roads during October.

Each car has a QR code that will lead to the Steeplechase Cancer Center at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Somerset, where a mammogram appointment can be made. To protect and to serve takes on a new meaning with the great effort, and I genuinely applaud them for it.