Spring 2023
By Robbie Merritt
October marked Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and the beginning of a promising partnership between Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and national retailer Talbots, a company founded by women for women. To commemorate both organizations celebrating monumental 75-year milestones in 2022, and to support women’s wellness and survivorship, Talbots launched the Shop for a Cause initiative. In October, 10% of net proceeds on purchases in retail stores, outlets, and online provided $100,000 to help fund critical breast cancer research at Dana-Farber.
But the partnership did not end there. Talbots engaged the Institute’s expertise in women’s cancers for the benefit of its customers, sharing women’s health content online throughout October with the help of Dana-Farber breast oncologist Jennifer LIgibel, MD, director of the Leonard P. Zakim Center for Integrative Therapies and Healthy Living, and patient Maggie Loucks. Ligibel provided important information about breast cancer through programs like a weekly “Wellness Wednesdays” on the Talbots Instagram, while Loucks shared inspiring stories from her 2012 diagnosis and successful treatment at Dana-Farber for invasive ductal carcinoma, the most common type of breast cancer.
Said Ligibel, “Partnerships like this provide critical funding for the ‘sparks’ that lead to the next big discoveries in cancer research, getting us one step closer to a world without breast cancer.”