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Owls Raise £6574 for Breast Cancer Research

Owls Raise £6574 for Breast Cancer Research

Sean Mills12 Mar 2017 - 18:33
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In 2016, The H&D Owls decided to bare all in aid of Breast Cancer Now, the UK’s largest breast cancer charity.

HARWICH OWLS RAISE A PHENOMENAL AMOUNT FOR BREAST CANCER RESEARCH WITH NAKED CALENDAR

In 2016, during the downtime between rugby seasons, Harwich Owls took on a challenge very different to their usual style; the ladies rugby team decided to bare all in aid of Breast Cancer Now, the UK’s largest breast cancer charity dedicated to funding research into this devastating disease.

Martin Grayling Photography was tasked with producing a calendar that showed Strong women and at the same time the inclusivity of rugby. Sophia Tricker, captain of The Owls said “All women have something about their bodies they don’t like, but rugby gives you that confidence in yourself and your shape. We know that regular activity can reduce your risk of getting breast cancer, so we wanted to combine the sport element with the nudity to create something a little bit different to your average naked calendar”.

Harwich and Dovercourt Rugby Club held a Calendar launch at an Owls home game, which saw a packed clubhouse, covered in pink and live music post-match. The event and early calendar sales raised a fantastic £1400 on the day. Since then, the combined total of online sales and sales from local businesses total a HUGE £6574.57 towards Breast Cancer Now’s life-saving research.

Laura Hudson, player and volunteer fundraiser for Breast Cancer Now said: “The calendar has been a great success, the amount raised has been far more than I could ever have dreamed of when I originally had the idea. This is entirely due to the support from the whole club; sponsors, players and supporters a like. I have never been part of a family quite like Harwich & Dovercourt Rugby Club. Every 10 minutes, a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer and sadly every 45 minutes a woman dies from the disease. The money we have raised will make a massive difference in bringing us closer to the goal of stopping women dying from Breast Cancer by 2050.”

The generous sponsorship from club sponsors as well as the photographer Martin Grayling and Autoprint both donating their services for free, has meant that 100% of the proceeds will go directly to the charity. Secondary Breast Cancer remains incurable. With the fight against breast cancer more relevant than ever, the club have shown that when you unite together to make a stand against this disease you can make a big difference.

Breast Cancer Now is bringing together all those affected by the disease to improve the way breast cancer is prevented, detected and treated in order to stop the disease and move from a time when people fear breast cancer to a generation where everybody lives.

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