UK "pink" anti-cancer t-shirts a nationwide hit
 

By Jim Warren
Lexington Herald-Leader
Posted on Tue, Sep. 02, 2008

On Monday, Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity chapters on U.S. college campuses started selling "Real Men Wear Pink" T-shirts in hopes of raising thousands of dollars for breast cancer research, and the whole project was conceived at the University of Kentucky.

Will Stahl, president of the Alpha Gamma Rho chapter at UK, said he hit on the idea of selling pink T-shirts for breast cancer last fall while trying to come up with a fraternity charity project.

Pink, of course, is the color used by many groups to support breast cancer research.

Stahl and his fraternity brothers developed two shirt designs — "Real Men Wear Pink" for guys, and "My Man Wears Pink" for girls — and sold 530 shirts to members of other UK Greek organizations in 2007. The chapter ultimately raised almost $2,700 for Susan G. Komen For the Cure, the organization dedicated to conquering breast cancer.

"This year, we wanted do it a little bigger," Stahl said. "So I got on the horn and tried calling all the AGR chapters in the country. Three aren't active yet, and I couldn't reach three others, which brought it down to 65.

"But all 65 chapters are going to participate, along with us at UK, and that's not too small."

Stahl has personal reasons for fighting breast cancer. His grandmother had breast cancer which spread and eventually took her life, and he knows others who have been touched by the illness.

To simplify things for the nationwide T-shirt sale, the shirts are being sold only online, and buyers anywhere in the country can go to one Web site to make purchases. All orders will come to the UK fraternity, which will have the shirts made by a Western Kentucky vendor and then ship them to buyers.

The shirts are $10 each and can be purchased by going to the Alpha Gamma Rho Web site, www.ukagr.com.

The sale runs through Sept. 26, and Stahl wants everybody who buys a T-shirt to wear it Oct. 22, during Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

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I just ordered one for my husband who is an oncologist.

Also, as someone who has previously sat on a Komen board, I can attest that it is a very fine organization with very strict limitations on what can be spent on "overhead." I was always proud to be associated with such a financially responsible organization. It was very rewarding to see firsthand how women (and men) benefitted from the money that they raised.

Good for the UK AGRs. Wish we could read more good deads like this in the media. Best of luck to them with this endeavor.

That's so cool! The ZTA main site has a "Real men think pink" version. It's great to see a men's fraternity do this, too.

How awesome! What a great idea for a wonderful cause. Good job gents!:)

i have known several zeta chapters that have done the shirt for men. how neat that a fraternity is also doing so!

This is a really wonderful idea.