The Oregon and Southwest Washington chapter of Susan G. Komen announced Wednesday it’s shutting down at the end of March.
The Pacific Northwest affiliate dedicated to breast-cancer research and awareness has had passionate local backing for years. Its annual Race for the Cure fundraiser in Portland attracted thousands of participants. The event was held “virtually” last year because of the coronavirus pandemic, and still reached its fundraising goal, “which is a testament to the community’s support,” says Andrew Asato, the CEO of Susan G. Komen Oregon and SW Washington.
The affiliate, which closed its downtown Portland office last spring shortly after the pandemic hit the region, is not being singled out. Susan G. Komen, based in Texas, is shuttering its chapters across the country and moving to a new operating model it’s calling “One Komen.”
The Northwest affiliate’s seven staffers will be laid off, with severance, Asato says.
A "reflection garden" tribute accompanied the 2015 Race for the Cure in Portland. As well as raising money for research, Komen supports families dealing with breast cancer. (Stephanie Yao Long/The Oregonian)LC- The Oregonian
“This is a sad and painful journey for us,” the local executive told The Oregonian/OregonLive. He acknowledged that “key supporters are not necessarily happy” with the decision to shut down Komen Oregon and SW Washington. Asato added that he doesn’t know how the national organization is going to hold local events or interact with the community “without boots on the ground.”
The Oregon-SW Washington affiliate says that during the transition to the new national model, it “will give over $200,000 to community partners to either continue the work Komen Oregon and SW Washington began or further enhance their own work.”
Those receiving the funding include African-American Initiative, Breast Friends, NW Family Services, Oregon Health Authority’s ScreenWise, PeaceHealth SW, Pink Lemonade Project, Treatment Access Program, Worship in Pink and the affiliate’s medical-research partners.
After March 31, funds raised by Susan G. Komen in the Northwest will go to national programs, not local ones.
An estimated 10,000 people braved pouring rain for the 2018 Race for the Cure in Portland. (Mark Graves/Staff Mark Graves)Mark Graves
The national organization -- founded by Nancy Brinker in 1982 and named after Brinker’s sister, who died of breast cancer in 1980 at age 36 -- was a public-awareness pioneer. It put a spotlight on a subject that for years was considered all but taboo in the public sphere.
“During this time, topics on breast cancer were not widely discussed and were even censored in newspaper headlines,” the Komen website says of its founding. “Corporations avoided sponsoring cancer-related events and information was scarce -- no 800 numbers, no websites, nothing for patients and families to lean on.”
Brinker set out to change all of that, calling herself “the Carrie Nation of breast cancer.” In 2009, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Susan G. Komen boasts of investing more than $1 billion in breast-cancer research since its founding -- and millions of dollars more in support services and public-awareness efforts.
But the organization’s revenue has reportedly declined significantly in recent years, in part as a result of backlash from Komen’s 2012 decision to end breast-cancer screening grants to Planned Parenthood. The charity quickly backtracked and relaunched the grants.
Breast cancer long has been the most common kind of cancer for women in the U.S., other than skins cancers. For much of the 20th century, fear, medical quackery and general misinformation swirled around the subject. In 1928, The Oregonian reported that it was “predicted by some authorities that there will be a lessening of the incidence of breast cancer in the present generation because of the fact that women have discarded corsets.”
Mammography screenings became common in the 1980s and ’90s, and, with increased research funding, breast-cancer treatments improved. Breast-cancer death rates have fallen by about 40% since 1989.
For the past 29 years, the Komen affiliate in Oregon and Southwest Washington has played its part in those improving outcomes, raising some $35 million for research, advocacy and patient support.
“This change is incredibly difficult,” local Komen communications manager Alice Fern wrote in an email about the decision to close the chapter. “Komen Oregon and SW Washington has been a place of support, friendship and family during some of the hardest times along the breast cancer journey.”
-- Douglas Perry
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