The Geary County Health Department has once again received an educational grant from the Kansas Affiliate of Susan G. Komen worth just over $30,000 to be used for breast cancer education.

Four years ago the KASGK conducted a community profile that showed late stage breast cancer diagnosis in African American women was really high in Geary County.

Since then Irma Patterson, GCHD RN has been working to educate all women in Geary County about breast cancer awareness. Patterson holds outreach events that are funded through the KASGK grants.

Kirsten Bruce, Education and Grants Coordinator for the KASGK explained that they reached out to the Geary County Health Department about assisting them with providing educational material.

“We had already worked with them as a grantee, and we talked to them again about those numbers. Irma has spent the past four years making sure that women have the information that they need to make sure that they can get screenings, and resources to help them get screenings if they don’t have insurance,” said Bruce.

Patterson said she holds the outreach programs anywhere and everywhere she can.

“We go out and I do education, I’ve done education about breast health in the churches, in Dillons, in Wal-Mart, wherever I have been allowed I do that,” explained Patterson.

The KASGK recently conducted another community profile and Bruce said that the late stage diagnosis numbers have decreased in Geary County.

“Geary County did not come up with statistics this year as higher incidents in late stage diagnosis. We haven’t done a lot of longitude and research on it but I think, even in those four years, we’ve seen an improvement in the numbers just from the work that Irma has done,” Bruce said.

Patterson’s next outreach event will be August 23rd at the Army National Guard Armory in Junction City. It will be held from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., and is titled “Beautiful: Is Imagining Life Without Breast Cancer” with fashion provided by Kom-pluh-ments.