Grantor Name: Arizona Diamondbacks Foundation
Program Name: Banner MD Anderson Cancer Center’s Big Pink Bus
Grant Amount: $100,000
Recipient Name: Banner Health Foundation
Overview of Use of Funds: Good Works Grant Writing is overjoyed to congratulate our client, Banner Health Foundation, for being selected to receive a $100,000 Ken Kendrick Grand Slam Award from the Arizona Diamondbacks Foundation. Diamondbacks’ funding will support Banner MD Anderson Cancer Center’s Big Pink Bus, which will provide mobile, Digital Breast Tomosynthesis (3D) Mammography. For thousands of women in communities throughout Maricopa County and adjacent counties that lack nearby access, education, information, and/or transportation, this traveling technology will offer greater accuracy, reduce false positives, find more cancers, and detect them sooner.
Overview of Grant Objective/Impact: In Arizona, breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer for our mothers, daughters, sisters and friends, with 5,800+ women diagnosed and 900 dying from it in 2021. Women of low socioeconomic status are almost twice as likely to be diagnosed with advanced-stage breast cancer, with breast cancer death rates 13.7% higher. Women who skip screenings cite the long distance to an imaging site or lack of transportation as reasons. By bringing this mobile mammography unit to communities where it is most needed, the Big Pink Bus will serve as a seamless entry to Banner MD Anderson Cancer Center’s multidisciplinary breast cancer program, and further Banner’s mission to make health care easier so life can be better, by screening up to 4,000 women in the first year.