“Dress up or dress down, but please wear brown.”
This was the message featured on the 2015 invitation to CoxHealth’s Colorectal Awareness and Prevention party, more prominently known as CRAP. The 2016 party was held April 2 at Bass Pro Shops’ White River Conference Center, where guests entered through a giant inflatable colon. Having attended this event for at least four of its seven years, I have come to believe the liberally used cheeky humor is an important part of its formula for success.
“We do have a lot of fun with the name,” said CoxHealth Foundation President Lisa Alexander. “We appreciate the seriousness of the subject. However, the fun is what seems to have made it a lot easier for people to talk openly about colon and rectal cancers, helping us to spread awareness at the event and beyond.”
Who doesn’t enjoy a little potty talk at the dinner table? Am I right? As guests played with the table favors that I can only describe as little stress butts (small, anatomically correct squeezable objects), we discussed when we would have our first or next colonoscopy. We did so without dread or embarrassment. It was genius. After dinner fun included casino and carnival games, like craps and a toilet paper toss.
CRAP was born in 2010 when Drs. Charles Woodall and Jose Dominguez approached Alexander with a problem. They were seeing a high number of patients with colon cancer who reported never having had a colonoscopy. The reason most often cited was the $1,000 price tag for the test, as well as a lack of adequate insurance.
The doctors’ goal was to raise money to help provide colonoscopies for those who couldn’t afford one on their own. Dominguez and others continue to emphasize this is a preventable disease. A colonoscopy could have stopped the cancers they were seeing before they had a chance to start.
Just over $18,000 for colonoscopies was raised in the first year with approximately 240 event attendees. Alexander estimates the 2016 event has cleared over $70,000 and had 480 guests in attendance.
I applaud CoxHealth and the CRAP team for rallying some serious support for colorectal cancer awareness and prevention in such a fun and impactful way. And bottoms up to the businesses, individuals and care providers who so generously fund the cause.
“We know we can’t fix every problem and provide every service, but we are trying to make a difference where we can,” Alexander said. “Our doctors and our hospitals appreciate that our community still has an unusually high number of under and uninsured patients. Instead of saying, ‘Well that’s a shame you can’t get that test,’ we try to find a solution.”
Springfield Business Journal Publisher Jennifer Jackson can be reached at jjackson@sbj.net.
