Origin of The White Ribbon Project
“It’s a simple project with high impact.”
In the fall of 2020, lung cancer advocates began increasing their efforts to encourage health care and cancer centers to recognize Lung Cancer Awareness Month (LCAM) in November. The stigma against lung cancer, resulting from years of misleading awareness campaigns that imply that lung cancer stems from only one cause, has proven to be a huge barrier to recognition, patient advocacy, and fundraising efforts for this deadly and complex disease. Lung cancer is the leading cancer killer for both men and women, but it historically receives only a fraction of cancer research money. The stigma is real.
Origin of the Ribbon
By October, Heidi Onda became so frustrated with being rejected by hospital administrators and marketing departments that she asked her husband, Pierre, to make a white ribbon out of plywood to hang on their front door. “No one can stop me from putting a white ribbon up on my own house!” she said. Pierre made the ribbon with a sticker reading “Lung Cancer Awareness,” and Heidi shared pictures of it on a private Facebook page for lung cancer survivors in Colorado. Everyone loved the images of the Ondas’ ribbon and began asking for their own.
Heidi and Pierre turned their garage into a ribbon-making warehouse and began personally creating and shipping white ribbons all over the country, each one signed by its maker. Heidi even handwrites a personal note to accompany each ribbon she and Pierre send. Fighting the lung cancer battle is very personal and unique to every person affected by lung cancer; these signed ribbons and notes remain a very important part of the effort, both to Heidi and to those receiving a ribbon.
Ribbons Around the World
Within 6 months, more than 1,000 ribbons have been made and shipped all over the United States and Canada as well as the Philippines, the Netherlands, and Germany. Ribbon recipients have been posing for pictures with their ribbons in front of their cancer centers, their homes, and tourist attractions and posting them on social media. Thanks to many strong survivor/advocates, several comprehensive cancer centers and organizations are now displaying white ribbons.
A Symbol of a Movement
Pierre and Heidi’s creation of the first ribbon has spurred a movement to build community, reframe education, increase awareness, and remove the stigma against the lung cancer community. Some ribbon recipients use their own ribbon to make more ribbons for friends, caregivers, and medical personnel in their local community.
While The White Ribbon Project started as a grassroots, unbranded operation, we hope to grow and unite the entire lung cancer community as a means to increase awareness by sharing the white ribbons and logo with lung cancer advocacy groups, health care institutions, and other supporters. We want to increase public recognition of the white ribbon as a lung cancer symbol. Please join us.