Although a breast cancer diagnosis is not an annual event, calling attention and awareness to the disease is. October, which is known as breast cancer awareness month, is winding down and with that most will put all of the pink away for another year.

In Troup County, there have been several fundraising opportunities, including our own special section that published on Oct. 19.

For the first time, 10 percent of our advertising sales in this section were donated to a breast cancer charity.

However, no event was larger than the annual H.O.P.E. for a Day Walk and Paint the Town Pink. Together that weekend brings a ton of awareness to women and men battling breast cancer.

Many of us don’t think about how many people breast cancer effects on a regular basis unless it is at the forefront of our minds. According to breastcancer.org, one in eight women (about 12 percent) will develop invasive breast cancer over the course of her lifetime and an estimated 268,000 new cases are expected to be diagnosed in women in the United States this year.   Plus, nearly 63,000 new cases of non-invasive breast cancer are expected to be diagnosed.

So, the urgency to combat these numbers should not end in October but should live on throughout the year.