November is Lung Cancer Awareness Month

For this month Scranton brings awareness to the community by displaying numerous grey flags along with awareness facts in the Courthouse Square of Downtown Scranton. Like breast cancer’s color is pink, lung cancer’s is grey. Zeta Omicron, Kappa Pi (Marywood’s Art Honor Society) was asked to bring some color to Lung Cancer awareness. For this, we chose a different type of art medium than we usually use—sidewalk chalk.

Zeta Omicron hit the sidewalks of downtown to create some chalk art in front of Courthouse Square to go along with the multitude of flags. We also created on a personal level by drawing chalk portraits of people affected by lung cancer. Along with the chalk portraits we write down colorful statistics relating to lung cancer. We complete our chalk drawings by the time of the annual Lung Cancer Vigil that takes place Downtown on November 5, 2015. Due to the medium we are working with, we have to work with obstacles such as a rainy forecast to ensure the artwork is present for a good amount of time including during the Vigil.

The largest effort in this month is to break the stigma of lung cancer being only a smoker’s disease. People affected by lung cancer have also been victims of prejudice from the thoughts that they have caused their condition. Lung cancer has previously given the lowest funds out of all the diagnosed cancers due to its misconception of the disease’s causes. While drawing on the sidewalks, people would often stop to look. Art captures the attention of many, so it has proven to be a useful tool in spreading awareness. It is an honor to be able to use art as part of this good cause.