Digging Deep To Make A Difference

Wearing pink to help increase breast cancer research awareness is one way to show you care about the cause. At the high school, athletic teams don’t think that’s enough and they take it a step further by holding fundraisers to help support that research.

The biggest of the fundraisers is the annual Dig Pink event, sponsored by the JV and varsity volleyball teams. The volleyball players spend hours baking homemade cupcakes, cookies, chocolate covered pretzels and other goodies topped with pink icing and pink breast cancer ribbons. Pink hair ties were also for sale. The teams raised nearly $600 at the event this year.

Dig Pink is a national breast cancer rally organized by the Side-Out Foundation, which encourages middle school and high school volleyball teams to hold events supporting the cause each October. Each volleyball team has been playing a non-league game against other high schools during the Dig Pink event. For the past seven years, the opponent has been Glen Cove High School.

Varsity coach Bobbee Brancaccio and junior varsity coach Janet Ratner supported both teams as they prepared for the event. “It’s a friendly rivalry between the two teams” Ratner said. “The games are fun, but the fundraiser is what the event is all about.”

Dig Pink was the anchor event of a month-long schedule of “pink” athletic games. Athletes in each sport wore pink accessories and held their own bake sales.