SUE MILLER GRANT
“I wanted to let people know that surviving breast cancer doesn’t just mean living, it means living well.”
At age 34, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a bilateral mastectomy. At that time, breast cancer was perceived as fatal and even contagious, and Miller stopped receiving modeling jobs due to the scarring. When she was asked by a woman in a prosthesis store to put together a fashion show for them, she agreed on a condition: all the models must be women who had had breast cancer.
She and five other women did a “Survivors Fashion Show” for bridge clubs and luncheons; she distributed cards reading, “Cancer is not catching and we’re still beautiful”. At a show in the Jewish Community Center in 1980, she met Joan Camp, a nurse who was trying to spread breast cancer awareness, and decided to add an educational aspect to the fashion show.
In 1981, they mounted the first Day of Caring. It included the fashion show, a boutique, a resource center, discussion groups, seminars and workshops, a silent auction, and the sale of handicrafts to benefit the organization.
Day of Caring was the first nonprofit to be established for breast cancer awareness and education in Colorado. The Day of Caring became an annual event, held in nine cities in the United States.
By 2017, the Day of Caring was drawing thousands of attendees and the organization had reached out to more than 17,500 patients and survivors of breast cancer with educational forums and support services. Miller headed the organization until 2002, when she suffered a mild stroke.
After her death in 2017, the organization merged with the Cancer League of Colorado.
In the 1970s, Miller established a Denver telephone network called Pre-surgical Partners, which connected breast cancer survivors with breast cancer patients to offer friendship and support during the treatment process.
On the legislative front, Miller lobbied for a state bill requiring health care organizations to offer mammograms to women over 40, which successfully passed, and for the federal government to fund breast cancer research.
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Mailing address:
Suddenly Pink Foundation
C/O Barb Finnin
PO Box 440251
Aurora, CO 80044
