Charitable Gift Giving

Back in 2005, Kelly Rooney, a 43-year old mother of 5 young children, was sick with breast cancer when her sister, Erin Dugery, and her friend, Kelly Day, asked her what they should name the team they’d put together for a cancer walk.

 Even in her suffering, she maintained a terrific sense of humor and answered: “Save Second Base”.

 By July 2006, she was in the last stages, she asked Erin and Kelly, “What are you going to do to make sure my girls don’t get breast cancer?” The two women responded by creating a company called Save 2nd Base (www.save2ndbase.com). They poured their personal money into starting the company, and in creating the logos and products to support the cause. Of all the products they sell, 50% of the proceeds go to the Foundation to fight breast cancer that Kelly’s husband set up, the Kelly Rooney Foundation, while the other 50% goes to breastcancer.org.  

Their signature product was the clever T-Shirt you see to the right, the phrase “Save 2nd base” with two baseballs strategically positioned over…second base. To be sure, the shirt is quite direct, and even controversial. But sometimes that’s the thing that’s needed to bring attention to this plight that so many people take for granted until it hits someone close to them.

In fact, the “controversy” part made national news last year. You may have heard last year about how two teenage girls in Kansas, with well intentioned but ultimately flawed logic, copied the trademarked T-Shirt design without permission and sold them at their high school football game. When the school raised concerns about the shirt being worn in school, of course the national media flocked like vultures to the controversy and turned it into a story of the girls being “oppressed” by their school administration and missed the real story–the message behind the shirts.

To Dugery and Day’s credit, they didn’t raise a stink about the trademark infringment, even though they had every right to protect their intellectual property. They contacted the girls and worked with them to allow them to sell their products legally.

The online store is still going strong today. They still sell their signature T-Shirts, and also other great gifts from bags to men’s polo shirts to a great shirt to remind women to get breast exams with the memorable phrase “Check Your Tires”, of course with the tires also positioned strategically over “second base” 🙂

I can think of no better way to kick off Breast Cancer Awareness Month than to highlight this inspirational company and the fun gifts they sell for a serious cause.