October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month and everywhere you look people are wearing pink to raise awareness. So why was the ‘Fighting the Fight Against Breast Cancer Conference’ canceled? That is a question that no one seems to have an answer for.

If you ask the members of LMCAS and advisor Demetria Lawrence, it is simple, not enough people signed up by the deadline. If you ask the people behind the conference and Sherrie Anderson, it is not that simple.

Anderson spoke at the LMCAS meeting on Monday Oct. 7 to share her displeasure with the cancellation and make suggestions about what to do now that the event was canceled.

“The people who donated should be notified and have the ability to get their donations back,” she said. Anderson also said that she wants her money back as well.

Anderson believes people should have the opportunity to get their money back because, according to the people behind the conference, they had 103 people sign up before deadline.

The initial goal of 100 sign-ups was reached, but the paper registrations that were gathered were not entered into the computer by the deadline and therefore did not count.

As far as LMCAS is concerned, though, they just didn’t meet the deadline.The planning committee for the conference made the deadline. The planning committee is an extension of the senate so when they set a deadline, it is final.

The issue now is what should be done with the donations. As Anderson said, they believe the people who donated should have the opportunity to take their donations back, but that’s not how it works.

According to Lawrence the donations belong to LMCAS now.

“Donations belong to the senate once their made,” she said adding, “The donations can be used for any events.”

And the senate are going to use those donations for another breast cancer awareness event, the ‘Dig Pink Spirit Event’ presented by LMCAS and the LMC volleyball team.

Even though the event was canceled, the senate has decided to continue with the scholarship for LMC students who are dealing with breast cancer. The scholarship will retain the name of Rosanna Clark, the originator of the conference event and be called LMCAS Breast Cancer Scholarship in Honor of Rosanna Clark.

That doesn’t seem to be enough to appease the people behind the conference, though, as they believe the only reason Clark’s name is still attached to the scholarship is because people begged them to keep it.

Whether that is true or not is unknown but it shows the clear frustration of the people who are not happy the event was canceled.

Either way you see this story one thing is sure, supporting breast cancer is important to the students and faculty here at LMC. Although there is a lot of controversy around this event, LMC encourages students to support the ‘Dig Pink’ event and other breast cancer events in the future.