About Pink Ribbon Girls
Pink Ribbon Girls’ mission is to provide personalized support to young women throughout all phases of the breast cancer journey. We accomplish this through education, outreach, awareness, and one-on-one support to women and their families.
No one travels this road alone…
Support
We offer support and services to our members through our Simply Fight and No Age No Stage programs which offer free services for those in treatment to help with life needs such as housekeeping, babysitting, meals and transportation. Survivors can also connect via our secure national database.
Awareness
We create awareness in the community that young women do indeed get diagnosed with breast cancer. We work to positively impact the community through Pink Game Days and other breast cancer awareness events. Our goal is to communicate that 1 in 8 women gets diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime and therefore impacts their family and friends. We strive to rally around these survivors and create awareness that No One Travels This Road Alone!
Education
Our Love Your Girls program provides education and support through our website, social and print media, as well as public speaking forums. We collaborate with other breast cancer organizations and research groups such as The University of Cincinnati Medical Center Department of Environmental Health's Windows of Susceptibility Grant in order to educate the public about breast cancer basics, healthy living and ways to understand breast cancer research findings.
Tracie Metzger – Founder of Pink Ribbon Girls and Director of Development
Pink Ribbon Girls was founded when Tracie realized there was no specific group for young women dealing with breast cancer. Tracie was 30 years old when she was diagnosed and had two children under the age of 3. She found the lump during a self-breast-exam when her daughter stopped nursing. After a visit to the doctor, he told her it was probably a clogged milk duct or a fibroadenoma. Like many young survivors, she was told to wait a few months to see if it went away. She wasn’t comfortable with that and insisted on surgery. When the lump was removed, it was malignant. Stage I Breast Cancer, September 2000.
Heather Salazar – Executive Director
Finding no specific groups in the Dayton area for young women dealing with breast cancer, Heather partnered with Tracie Metzger to bring the power of Pink Ribbon Girls to the region. Breast cancer came boldly into Heather’s life while caring for a young woman, Alexis, who was nearing the end of her battle with Stage IV breast cancer and needed a home for her baby girl, Lexi. After prayer and the thoughtful consideration of her family, Heather welcomed baby Lexi into her family. Alexis died one year later at the young age 24. Two years later, with no family history, Heather was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 31. Stage I Breast Cancer, March 2005.
