Games day raises $10,000 for breast cancer

The ladies of the Longboat Key Club laid their cards and purses on the table Wednesday afternoon. The women gathered in the Harbourside ballroom for an annual games day to benefit Breast Health Sarasota Inc. 

“This started many years ago when Golf for a Cure took up the whole dining room, and people wanted to put money into breast cancer research,” Co-chair Marion Levine said. “It’s for those people that don’t play golf or tennis.” 

After a COVID-19 hiatus, 137 members came out to play backgammon, canasta, mahjongg and bridge this year. So many that the raffle tickets sold out and $10,000 was raised, which doubles past donations. 

“Last year, this group raised $4,500 just playing cards,” said Breast Health Sarasota Inc. Chair Suellen Kaeb. “The Longboat Key Club, in 2022, raised over $85,000 with their combined events.” 

Donations pay for screenings, mammograms, biopsies and breast MRIs. Breast Health also sponsors a mobile mammogram bus. In October, 50 women in Newtown received breast cancer screenings. They plan on sponsoring four more screenings in Newtown this year. 

“We’re finding that women of color and the hispanic community, they have a little bit of distrust going into the big hospital system. It’s intimidating, and there may be a language barrier,” Kaeb said. “So we do these mobile units in their communities, and they’re more apt to come out and be screened.”