To help raise money for its mission of helping local residents who are going through cancer treatments, the Cullman County Bosom Buddies Foundation will be hosting a mastectomy bra and prothesis fundraising sale on Dec. 5. 

The sale will last from 10 a.m. to noon at the Cullman Veterans of Foreign Wars post, located at 112 Veterans Drive SW.

Foundation Vice President Judy Grissom said the organization will be asking for a $10 donation for bras and a $25 donation for protheses during the sale. 

She said the Bosom Buddies Foundation was able to take in a large amount of mastectomy bras and prostheses for free after a store closed its doors, so they are able to sell the new items at a low cost as a fundraiser.

“There’s a lot of ladies in Cullman County who could benefit from these savings,” she said. 

She said a typical mastectomy bra could cost $50 or more and a prosthesis can cost more than $300 when buying them off the shelf. Insurance can cover some of that cost, but even the co-pay for that would likely cost more than the price at the foundation’s sale.

“They’re saving a lot of money by just coming out and checking out our sale,” she said. “They may find something they can use or they may find a lot of things that they can use.”

This will be the second time this year that the Bosom Buddies Foundation has hosted a bra and prosthesis sale, and the first sale in June garnered a lot of interest from the community, Grissom said. 

“I thought it went very well, and I think this one will probably do better,” she said. 

Like most other nonprofits, the Bosom Buddies Foundation has seen a decrease in donations while people have been cutting back on their expenses during the COVID-19 outbreak, so the bra and prosthesis sale will hopefully bring in some additional funding for the organization, Grissom said.

“We thought that this could help us supplement our needed income for the year,” she said. 

While donations have been less than usual years, the Bosom Buddies Foundation recently received a financial boost from a “pink drink” fundraiser from Downtown Nutrition. 

Grissom said the shake and tea shop reached out to the organization about the fundraiser, and offered a portion of all of their sales of their pink drinks in October to the Bosom Buddies Foundation.

“It was unexpected,” she said. “We were tickled to death.”

She said the store got plenty of participation from the community and ended up donating $402.87 to the Bosom Buddies Foundation. 

“It really helped us a lot,” she said. 

Grissom said that donation came at the perfect time, because as soon as she went to the bank to deposit that money, a request came from Cullman Regional’s Nurse Navigator program for almost that exact amount of money needed for someone to help paying their bills, and she made sure to thank Downtown Nutrition for approaching the organization with their fundraiser idea. 

“We were grateful,” she said.