Madam, - On behalf of Action Breast Cancer and Europa Donna Ireland, the two breast cancer organisations that will benefit from the recently launched Fashion Targets Breast Cancer (FTBC) campaign in Ireland, we would like to respond to Eleanor Delaney's letter of May 26th.
FTBC is an international fundraising campaign operating in 13 countries. To date it has raised over €30 million for breast cancer charities all over the world through sales of the iconic FTBC T-shirts. Earlier this month the Brown Thomas group agreed to launch the campaign to benefit our two breast cancer charities in Ireland.
We were delighted when Elle Macpherson, a global ambassador for FTBC, agreed to launch the campaign in Ireland, at her own expense and free of charge to us. She was not here "promoting her own label T-shirt", but rather the FTBC T-shirt. Her worldwide celebrity status attracted much publicity, which resulted in instant sales and funds for our two causes, and we greatly appreciate her support and that of Brown Thomas.
Ms Delaney rightly applauds the "many good people who shake buckets and organise gala balls" to gather vital funds and raise awareness of breast cancer charities, without any benefit to themselves. However as your readers will no doubt appreciate, the charity and fundraising sector is becoming increasingly competitive and we are always looking for new and creative fundraising initiatives. FTBC provided us with such an opportunity. Ninety-five per cent of the money raised from the sales of the T-shirts will go towards the Action Breast Cancer programme for younger women with cancer, and 5 per cent of the monies raised to Europa Donna Ireland, the patient advocacy group which campaigns for better breast cancer services throughout the State.
We hope this clarifies the issues raised. - Yours, etc.,
ABBY LANGTRY,
Project Manager,
Action Breast Cancer;
SARAH TIERNEY,
Project Leader,
Europa Donna Ireland,
Dublin 4.