Komen
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Local Komen affiliate speaks on national controversy | YNN, Your News Now provides viewers with the latest news, weather, sports, and traffic 24 hours a day for the Austin, Texas market.
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Local Komen affiliate speaks on national controversy | YNN, Your News Now provides viewers with the latest news, weather, sports, and traffic 24 hours a day for the Austin, Texas market.
Volunteers with the Austin affiliate of Susan G. Komen are concerned that controversy between Planned Parenthood and Komen?s national branch could trickle down to the local level.
Earlier this year, the national Susan G. Komen foundation pulled its funding from Planned Parenthood, but thanks to immense public outcry, the foundation reversed its decision.
Deb Davis Groves is a volunteer for Komen's Austin branch. She?s a breast cancer survivor who wanted to help others dealing with the disease. Every Monday, she takes calls from women who are both insured and uninsured, and since the controversy erupted, she?s heard an earful.
Groves and others with Komen?s local chapter said they have been working hard to make sure donors and supporters don?t slip away. Groves wants to remind people that money raised through local races and other events stays right here in the community.
The five-county area the local Komen affiliate reaches includes funding to 11 different nonprofits which help provide breast health services to uninsured and underinsured women.
Planned Parenthood is one of those nonprofits, along with El Buen Samaritano Episcopal Mission in South Austin. El Buen has received grant money from the local Komen branch the past four years--money that has helped hundreds of women navigate a path to breast care they couldn't otherwise afford.
"If what one of the outcomes is that people choose to stop supporting them, then the people aren't punishing Susan G. Komen, they're punishing human beings," Victor Azios with El Buen Samaritano said.