Last Sunday, the Milwaukee Bucks, in partnership with Columbia St. Mary’s, hosted the 18th annual Bucks Wives Save Lives silent auction at the Bradley Center. This year, the auction raised $20,113.63 for the Milwaukee Breast & Cervical Cancer Awareness Program. In 18 years, the auction has raised more than $240,000 for the cause.
This year, fans bid on a variety of auction items, including a Brandon Jennings game worn shooting shirt, autographed jerseys from various NBA players and autographed items from the Super Bowl Champion Green Bay Packers. The Bucks Team Mates (an organization of Bucks wives, friends and family members) also put together the “Bucks Favorite Things” baskets, which included an autographed pair of shoes from a Bucks player along with their favorite books, DVDs, snacks and restaurant gift cards.
The Columbia St. Mary’s Breast Health Center is working to bring digital mammography closer to home for the women of Southeastern Wisconsin with the addition of the new Columbia St. Mary’s Mobile Digital Mammography Center. The Mobile Digital Mammography Center provides screening mammograms at clinic locations and community partners in an effort to make the screening process easier and more accessible. The Milwaukee Breast and Cervical Cancer Awareness Program (MBCCAP) is a City of Milwaukee Health Department Program. The mission of the City of Milwaukee Health Department is to ensure that services are available to enhance the health of individuals and families, promote healthy neighborhoods, and safeguard the health of the Milwaukee community. Since MBCCAP’s inception in 1990, the program has provided breast cancer screenings to approximately 29,000 uninsured and underinsured women in the City of Milwaukee.
The Milwaukee Breast and Cervical Cancer Awareness Program is supported by Federal and State grants to provide breast and cervical health screenings to women ages 35 – 64. The program is fortunate to have private agencies conduct fundraisers such as the Bucks Wives Saves Lives Auction to help support the program in various ways above and beyond the grants received. These extra funds are used to support the mobile education van, provide incentives for health fairs and to purchase gift cards for the women receiving screening mammograms.
