Volleyball team joins classmates in fighting the good fight

For anyone visiting Shelter Island School on Thursday, October 10, they might have been blinded by an abundance of pink.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and pink is the signature color.  Many students and teachers sported “Team Gibbs” T-shirts in support of Ginny Gibbs, a long-time math teacher who is battling the disease.

It was also “Dig Pink” day. Dig Pink is the volleyball breast cancer awareness rally that takes place in gyms all over the country during October.  Over 1,000 high school and college volleyball teams participate, raising funds for the Side-Out Foundation, which goes towards research and advocacy efforts. This year was Shelter Island’s sixth annual Dig Pink event.

The foundation is currently funding the “Side-Out Protocol,” a study specifically for patients with metastatic — stage 4 — breast cancer.

Results of the study are promising because they showed progression-free survival (the length of time during and after the treatment of a disease that a patient lives with the disease but does not get worse) in nearly half the 25 patients enrolled in the trial.

It was great to see a nice mix of players’ parents, alumni’s parents and friends in the stands for Shelter Island’s fundraiser. It is a proud and humbling thing to see these young women taking on such an important cause and really going all out to support it.

Through T-shirt sales and raffles, pink concessions and commemorative pink ribbons on the gym wall, the team raised over $625.