A pink wave crested over New York City school buildings on Oct. 16 as UFT members wore pink to work to raise awareness about breast cancer. The annual tradition is a way to celebrate survivors, pay tribute to lost loved ones and colleagues, and emphasize the importance of early detection and treatment.

For members at PS 1 in Brooklyn, wearing pink is about showing up for colleagues who have been diagnosed with breast cancer, said Mary Martinez, the school’s chapter leader. “It’s a place of darkness, and it’s really scary” to cope with a diagnosis, she said. “To show that we’re all family here gives them support in their recovery.”

At Hillcrest HS in Queens, staff wore pink in memory of their colleague Linda Biggs, who died in June. Along with advocating for paraprofessionals’ workplace rights as the school’s UFT paraprofessional representative, Biggs organized the school’s team for the Making Strides breast cancer walk every year. “It was really important for us to do this in her memory,” said Chapter Leader Michael Ferruso. “She embodied the spirit of the union.”

For other schools, Breast Cancer Awareness Month initiatives focus on health education. Dona Brathwaite, the biology teacher at the Young Women’s Leadership School in Jamaica, Queens, rallies her colleagues to wear pink every day of the month to start conversations about women’s health and “reduce the stigma” around talking about women’s reproductive health. Since all their students are girls, the educators hold the cause especially dear to their hearts.

Brathwaite teaches her students about cell division and uncontrolled growth that leads to tumors. She emphasizes the importance of self-screening for breast cancer. One 7th-grade student, she said, found a lump in her breast during a self-exam after learning how to self-screen in class, told a parent and got the medical care she needed.

“The student and her parents were so grateful,” said Brathwaite. “Everyone, including children, are their own first health advocates.”