(KTNV) LAS VEGAS — “Women out there need to know that, you will get through this, said Tawuana Carroll, an 11-year breast cancer survivor said. “You have to connect with a positive support group.”
Every October, Carroll looks forward to Bras for a Cause. It is the social event of the year for breast cancer survivors and the Las Vegas Chapter of the Women’s Council of Realtors.
“It takes your mind off of what you’re really dealing with,” said Carroll, whose mother is now battling the disease. “It gives you that support, that positive, that happy, that silly; it’s just amazing.”
The event features men dress up in mailbox, hardware hat, peanut and other crazy-designed bras created by the models themselves. The event raising money to send a survivor on a retreat with other survivors from across the country through the Send Me on Vacation nonprofit.
“The amazing thing is, is that while they’re on this vacation, they do one thing in the community that is for the community,” said Bobbie Stardust, President of the Las Vegas Chapter of the Women’s Council of Realtors. “The last time they did a trip to Mexico, they organized a library.”
Stardust lost her mother to breast cancer when she was 12 and says this fundraiser is near and dear to her heart.
“I think about what it would’ve meant to her to go on vacation with other women like her an how she would’ve felt apart of something versus being the oddball in the group,” Stardust said. “She had a double mastectomy.”
Stardust recruits community members and local celebs, like Buck Hujabre. The local broker and veteran Bras for a Cause model, lost his sister-in-law to breast cancer. He says it’s important for men to fight since the disease affects them and their loved ones as well.
“When men have a gimmick, or a gadget, and in this case the gimmick and the gadget happens to be wearing a bra when you normally wouldn’t do that, it gives us a larger platform to be able to share knowledge to be able to share awareness and to help rally the troops as it were for an excellent cause,” Hujabre said.
After the fashion show, WCR is auctioning the bras off. Then they will select a survivor to go on the special retreat. For more information go to the Bras for a Cause event page.
