IMPACT Melanoma Showcase at St. Stephen Episcopal School in Austin as part of “Young Women In Sport Health Fair”
On February 6th and 7th, St. Stephen Episcopal School in Austin, TX, hosted a “Young Women In Sport Health Fair” as part of its annual celebration of National Girls and Women in Sports Day. For the third consecutive year, St. Stephen’s Head Athletic Trainer Kathy Rainey, and Assistant Athletic Director Chelsea Richards led a Chapel presentation to bring attention to gender inequities in athletics and offered a lunchtime expo the following day for female athletes.
IMPACT Melanoma was pleased to be a part of the expo festivities and we setup an engaging educational table that had one our skin scanners on it so that the students in attendance could look at the sun damage caused to their skin while taking part in outdoor activities (or just by simply spending time outdoors)…
Did you know that Melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer and is the second leading cause of cancer in adolescents and young adults aged 15–29 years. Since the 1970s, the incidence of pediatric melanoma has increased with an average annual percent change of 2–2.9%. We’re doing our part to take a long serious look at this statistic and figure out the best way to combat it. That starts with education…
Our own Beverly Hamilton took the time to speak with 400+ middle and high school aged girls and their faculty about the risks of UV exposure and ways to safely protect their skin. This included the ensuing (aforementioned) activity of everyone checking out their skin in the skin scanner which showed real-time, actual proof that skincare and proactive preventative skin health measures need to be a working piece of everyone’s daily routine.
“I was excited to talk with these young women and also their teachers at this great female-focused health promotion event,” said Beverly. “The girls were amazingly curious and thoughtful with their questions in general and were especially enthused about the skin scanner – which yielded results that led to further conversation with me and their group of peers. Many were shocked to see that they already had sun damage even at such a young age! Several mentioned that they wore sunscreen every day, but even more students mentioned that they rarely wore sunscreen – all learning lessons. I could really see the wheels turning for them and feel this experience was a worthy time investment for the over 400 young women in attendance.”
It’s never too early to start in on the conversation of proper skincare. It starts with engaging your own network / family and spreads from there! At IMPACT we thrive off of spreading the education of proper preventative measures that everyone can take to protect the skin they’re in, and we jump at any chance we can to spend time within our communities around the country. Together we can all make great IMPACT and this event was one small example of how invaluable the lessons of good skincare are and the waves of post-engagement conversation can create. We’ll be back! And if you have an event you think IMPACT would be a valued addition at, don’t hesitate to reach out!
