Bridges don’t usually wear bras.
But thanks to Bras Across the Bosque, more than 1,000 bras covered the Montano Bridge on Friday in honor of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
“We thought it would be a great visual spectacle to raise awareness,” said Enrico Jeantete, American Cancer Society spokesman. “It’s attention grabbing because it is kind of risqué, but it also gets the message out and gets people thinking about breast cancer awareness.”
The event was a first-ever collaborative effort between The Peak radio station, Lovelace Hospitals and the American Cancer Society.
Jeantete said that more than 1,000 donated brassieres were placed across the bridge on Friday at 4:30 a.m., and were taken down at 1 p.m.
Laura Rasmussen, UNM’s Colleges Against Cancer co-chairwoman, said the bras were collected at local establishments, including Lovelace, two auto stores and across campus.
“The goal of the event was to collect as many bras as possible,” she said. “We had three trash bags full — probably a hundred bras from UNM — and for every bra collected $1 was donated to the American Cancer Society.”
Jeantete said that at least 30 of the bras were donated by a breast cancer survivor.
“We had someone bring a huge bag full of bras with a note with it that said, ‘I used to love bras, and I am a breast cancer survivor so I can’t use them now, so I’m just going to give them to you,’” he said.
Jeantete said the bras will be cleaned and donated to an Albuquerque women’s shelter.
“A lot of the bras were in fantastic condition,” he said. “There were over a thousand bras, so the shelter will have a surplus available to their residents.”
Rasmussen said Bras Across the Bosque was one of several breast cancer fundraising events during October.
“It just kind of culminated all the events that have gone on this month,” she said. “It had all kinds of different facets that made it very successful and the fact that the bras were strung out in the open in a very public spot promoted breast cancer awareness to a large amount of people.”
Jeantete said breast cancer is curable if detected in its early stages.
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“Breast cancer is very beatable if caught early,” he said. “If you go get screened or go to your doctor regularly, your chances of beating cancer are much more significant and people need to understand that just because you have cancer doesn’t mean it’s a death sentence anymore. It means that you need to beat it.”
