Fire Academy Instructors Donning Pink to Fight Back Against Breast Cancer

It will be easy to spot Romeoville Fire Academy instructors starting next week. In honor of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, staffers will don eye-catching pink shirts as part of efforts to raise awareness of the disease and help support breast cancer research.

Battalion Chief Jon Ibrahim said the academy — the — will donate a portion of all proceeds it receives for tuition for the entire month of October.

“We wanted to do something to directly give back,” Ibrahim said, adding many academy staff members have been touched by the disease. “We teamed up with the charity Making Strides Against Breast Cancer.”

Proceeds from firefighter training courses, open to future and existing firefighters from departments throughout the Chicago area, will be donated to the "Making Strides" walk, an effort of the American Cancer Society.

But you don’t have to be a future firefighter to help.

The academy will also donate a portion of tuition from community CPR classes to the cause, along with money made from T-shirt sales.

Ibrahim said the shirts, on sale now at Fire Station 1, 18 Montrose Drive, are blue and bear the academy’s new “Train for the Cure” pink logo. To order a shirt, contact Diane at 815-886-7231. The cost is $12 for shirts sized up to XXL and $14 for sizes XXL-XXXL.

There’s one more way the academy is fighting back against breast cancer, according to staff.

“Most of the instructors have come forward and donated at least five hours of their instructor pay for the month of October,” Ibrahim noted.

For a complete Romeoville Fire Academy course catalog, or to register for a class, click on the academy’s page on the Village of Romeoville website.