 Truck Melanoma! had the great opportunity to participate in a huge trunk or treat event put on by Elevate Oregon (www.elevateoregon.org) and the Parkrose School District on Sunday 10/27/24 at Parkrose middle school.
The event is an annual event that takes place and is open to anyone in the community. It is a very well attended event, and even thought there was periods of very heavy rain and wind this year, it did not discourage anyone from attending. Our team passed out over 100 lbs of candy, over 1200 sunscreen samples and nearly 500 Truck Melanoma! and LentiGO stickers! We had a blast creating and setting up our Halloween decorations and think that our exhibit turned out pretty great! It was so much fun to see all of the kiddos out enjoying the festivities in a safe environment. Thank you to Elevate Oregon for having us out, and we look forward to next year! The 2024 Portland Gran Prix INDY Car races at Portland International Raceway were a massive success!
Our outreach efforts on Saturday and Sunday were massively popular. This year we had several sponsors that helped make our outreach successful. La Roche-Posay provided all of the incredibly popular sunscreen samples, and we passed our well over 2,000 samples to very appreciative race fans. Fuck Cancer sponsored the free skin checks, and our team of providers did 55 skin exams, helped identify 3 potential melanomas and a hand full of basal cell carcinomas. This year Truck Melanoma! was also able to have 3,000 sets of ear plugs with our logo on them made up to hand out, and these were incredibly popular. As we see it, we need to help protect your Trucking hearing as well so we can talk to you about how to spot and help prevent skin cancer! Rubbery Ducky Sunscreen provided our team with 200 samples of their SPF 44 lip balm, and not only is it a very quality product, it was wildly popular and we were quickly out of samples. The mobile clinic space that was sponsored by Ironman 4x4 America worked out amazingly well and offered a private area for the skin checks to be performed. Thank you to all who stopped by our booth. Thank you to the sponsors who helped make it possible for us to be at such a high profile event. Remember, YOUR support is what allows us to continue to potentially live saving work that we are doing to spread the message! Please consider a donation today!  We are very excited to announce our newest partnership with Fuck Cancer through the remainder of 2024. (www.letsfcancer.com)
Their organization has a wealth of information regarding cancer prevention as well as resources fr living with cancer, whether in yourself or a loved one. Team Truck Melanoma is pleased to partner with Fuck Cancer and know that it will be a great relationship that helps to further melanoma and skin cancer awareness. Their funding dollars will allow us to expand our skin check events to make them even better for the community that we are striving to reach! Thank you Fuck Cancer! Hello Truckers!
Check out the new 2024 sunscreen update from AIM at Melanoma Foundation. It has a lot of very good information in it that helps to demystify the often-confusing subject of sunscreens. It still remains; the best sunscreen is the one that you WILL wear and the one that you WILL reapply. Check out the article below: https://issuu.com/aimatmelanoma/docs/sunscreen_update_2024_3_?fr=sZDExODY5MjcyNzM Hello Truckers!
Our team has been listening to your requests at our events for the past year, and one of the MOST requested items that you wish we had in our outreach booth has been lip balm. Now, given our message of melanoma awareness, we wanted to find you a lip balm with a good SPF rating, but also one that is comfortable to wear. We believe that we have found that for your. Allow us to introduce you to Rubber Ducky and their awesome, SPF 44 lip balms. We at Team Truck Melanoma! have been testing out the lip balm over the last month and feel that we can confidently recommend the Rubber Ducky product to our amazing fans. We have not been paid to make this recommendation to you, and purchased the tester products that we have been trying out. For the past month, I personally have been using the Rubber Ducky Original Formula LIP NO-OX lip balm. It is Oxybenzone Free and VEGAN, it also has an 80 minute water resistance. It is a broad spectrum, vanilla flavored product, that goes on the lips very smoothly and does not feel sticky. The Vanilla flavor in my opinion, especially when the stick was new was a bit too much. I found it to taste a bit like frosting, but I have noticed that the flavor does seem to mellow as well as become more pleasant as the product has been opened and used. Rubber Ducky does make a mint flavored version as well, but this is not one that I have personally tried. I received feedback from others that I gave lip balms too that they also thought the vanilla flavor was a bit strong at first. One thing that I personally very much like about the Rubber Ducky lip balm is that it is a petrolatum-based product (40%). Personally, I have a long (10 1/2 year) history of working in dermatology, and petrolatum (i.e. Vaseline or Aquaphor) is what is very commonly recommended for moisturizing the lips as well as helping to heal wounds. In my experience, the Rubber Ducky lip balm makes my lips feel every bit as moisturized as Aquaphor does. The petrolatum base is what allows this product to glide on smoothly as compared to a wax-based lip balm. I have found that it does make this lip balm a little more sensitive to heat, so it is important to remember to twist the lip balm back into the tube to keep it from melting into the cap a little while in your pocket. Overall, I can confidently say, Team Truck Melanoma! is very happy to recommend Rubber Ducky lip balm to our audience, and we will have some samples at our future events. You can order the Lip balm on amazon using this affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3W87ZNz You can also order all of the Rubber Ducky SPF products from their website www.rubberducky.com Through the month of August, use code TRUCK at check out for a 20% discount off orders of $25 or more! Active Ingredients: Avobenzone (3.0%), Homosalate (3.0%), Octinoxate (7.5%), Octisalate (5.0%)----Sunscreen Petrolatum (40.0%)-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Skin Protectant Inactive ingredients: c12-15 Alkyl Benzoate, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Flavor, Mineral Oil, Ozokerite, Phenyl Trimethicone, Sucralose, Tocopheral I can't believe how far Truck Melanoma! has come since its humble beginnings. It all started during a car show, the Rigs and Coffee event, where I noticed a lack of awareness about skin cancer among the automotive and Motorsports enthusiast community. Inspired by my mentor, Dr. Glen Bowen, who always emphasized the importance of saving lives one tumor at a time, I decided to take action and honor his legacy.
Having worked alongside Dr. Bowen for years in dermatology surgery, specifically in Mohs surgery, I witnessed firsthand the impact we could make in treating basal cell, squamous cell, and melanoma skin cancers. Driven by our shared love for Motorsports, motorcycles, and the thrill of racing, it became clear that I could combine my passion with a mission to raise awareness about melanoma. With that conviction, I founded Truck Melanoma! as a nonprofit organization. Through extensive online research on how to start a non-profit and the support of my colleagues in the dermatology department, I was able to secure a $500 donation, which allowed us to purchase a truck that would serve as our race car and symbolize our commitment to fighting melanoma. Our first major outreach event took place at the NASCAR races held at the Portland International Raceway in June 2023. Offering free skin checks, we were able to identify four potential melanomas among the attendees. The success of this event fueled my determination to continue building Truck Melanoma! and spreading our message of skin cancer awareness. Throughout 2023, we organized five more outreach events, including the Rose Cup races, a member appreciation event at a sporting club, and even a local beer festival. The impact was significant, as we identified a total of eight potential melanomas and sixteen non-melanoma skin cancers. The enthusiasm and support from the automotive and Motorsports enthusiast community were overwhelming, inspiring us to aim higher. In 2024, we embarked on our first out-of-state event, the Offroad Games held in Hurricane, Utah. This event held a special significance for me, as Utah was not only my home state but also where I had worked closely with Dr. Bowen. The Offroad Games turned out to be a monumental gathering, attracting over 10,000 people and featuring prominent YouTubers with a combined subscriber count of over 30 million. Despite the challenges of running the entire three-day outreach event solo, I was determined to make a lasting impact. Armed with over 6,200 sunscreen samples, I engaged with attendees, spreading awareness about the importance of sun protection and offering free skin checks. The response was overwhelming, and I received $1,375 in donations, a testament to the growing support for our cause. But the highlight of the Offroad Games was the connections I made with influential YouTubers, some of whom were melanoma survivors themselves. One particular YouTuber, who had founded a non-profit foundation, expressed interest in collaborating with Truck Melanoma! to further our mission. This opportunity opened doors for future partnerships and the potential to scale our outreach nationally. Looking back, the Utah event proved to be pivotal for Truck Melanoma!'s financial viability and expansion. The generous donations and the exposure gained from engaging with influential YouTubers set the stage for our organization's growth. With each event, we were saving lives and raising awareness about melanoma, one person at a time. As our journey continues, I am filled with gratitude for the support and dedication of our team, the dermatology department, and the automotive and Motorsports enthusiast community. Together, we are making a difference, fulfilling Dr. Bowen's legacy, and ensuring that Truck Melanoma! becomes a beacon of hope and education for all those affected by skin cancer. The road ahead may be long, but with the roar of engines and the determination in our hearts, Truck Melanoma! will continue to race towards a future where skin cancer is no longer a threat. Good Morning! It has been a while since we had a blog post, and I wanted to take a moment to share some awesome news!
Team Truck Melanoma has been invited to be a part of the expo at the upcoming Offroad Games that are being hosted by Matt's Offroad Recovery in Sand Hollow State Park in Hurricane Utah March 14-16. WE are very excited to take our melanoma outreach to the event, and are very much looking forward to meeting all of the individuals there. Southern Utah is an outdoor recreation Meca, and a place that there is a lot of sun exposure. In fact, Utah, has one of the highest rates of melanoma in the entire country! We are very excited to have the Offroad Games as our first event in out national expansion, and are very much looking forward to the exposure and opportunities for reaching more people that will be had. If you are able to attend, I think that it will be an unforgettable event. There is slated to be over 6,000 people in attendance with 25+ of your favorite You Tube influencers from both the Motorsports and automotive realm as well as other genres. If you are attending the event, make sure you stop by our booth, booth 14 I believe, and say hello. We are also looking for volunteers to help us out during the event, and if you're already in the area, we would love to have you spend some time working with us. You can find out more about the event at www.offroadgames.com Lastly, we can only do what we do with the continued support of our fans, so I would like to put out the request that you consider making a recurring monthly donation. A $10 monthly donation is an easy amount and one that really adds up for us over the course of the year. Every penny that is donated goes directly into supporting our live saving outreach. We look forward to seeing you! |
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December 2024
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