The very busy Malibu Search and Rescue team is about to break a record by year’s end. The all-volunteer team of 30 well-trained, dedicated Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Reserves has made more than 140 rescues in its jurisdiction throughout the Santa Monica Mountains this year. This month that already beats 2015’s previous record of 132 rescues of Malibu residents and visitors who have driven or fallen off cliffs, canyons and suffered other life-threatening accidents.
Now the men and women of MSAR are trying to beat another record that will also help save lives. This is the second year the local search and rescue team is participating in the Pink Patch Project (PPP) for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The PPP is a growing collaborative effort of some 200 police, fire and first responder agencies that are trying to raise money to combat another killer beside the emergencies they resolve on a daily basis—breast cancer. One in eight women is diagnosed each year with invasive breast cancer and MSAR would like to put a stop to it. The group is the only search and rescue team nationwide to participate in the program.
“We have made a pink version of our shoulder patch, for breast cancer awareness. We’re very proud of that,” Deputy Steve Marshall, a Reserve volunteer with MSAR, explained. “Last year we fundraised just under $3,000 for breast cancer research. Last year, MSAR joined with 50 other agencies as the first SAR. We are now on track to raise another $3,000 plus. We’ve updated our patch, too, and they sold out last year. We’ve also selling a MSAR PPP challenge coin to help grow our fundraising effort.”
All money raised will go toward the charity, since donations were made to fund the making of the patches.
“We’ve decided to donate all our proceeds to the City of Hope,” Marshall described. “Money goes to breast cancer research and prevention. One hundred percent of the proceeds go back since donations were made to purchase the patches. We’re hoping to continue the cause and grow bigger and better. We’re a proud member of the LA County Sheriff’s Department, and the LACo Sheriff’s Department patch is also available. As a department, we were the top fundraiser last year for the City of Hope, departmentwide. We fundraised over $37,000.”
Unfortunately, cancer has struck the MSAR team hard.
“Two of us have lost our wives to breast cancer and one team member lost her husband several months ago to prostate cancer,” Team Leader David Katz shared, adding that that team member’s husband had been treated at the City of Hope.
“Any cancer research is important,” Katz said. “We’re not choosing this project because it’s breast cancer, but it does hit home for me because of the passing of my wife from breast cancer. I would love for other women and men to not have to suffer her same fate or to suffer if there’s a better way to go about treatment and save people’s lives.
“The PPP is a breast cancer-related charity, so that’s part of the reason we joined it, but also because we were the only search and rescue team to join it.”
Another way MSAR team members are trying to raise money to treat cancer and awareness is by photographing the pink patches in “fun spots,” according to Marshall.
“One of the fun things all of us involved in the project do—regardless of what department —we like to take our patches to faraway places,” Marshall said. “We’ve had department members take pictures at Disneyland and other spots in Europe and wherever they’re travelling. I was in North Carolina last month on the Appalachian Trail and took pictures on all the trail sites. It’s a fun thing we all do, to see who can get their patches in most exotic places. There are some people who like to trade them as well. There’s a police department in Alaska with beautiful patches so I bought them. Some of us collect, some of us don’t, but the main message is breast cancer awareness.”
Pink patches are available until they sell out at Cityshop@CityofHope.org and MalibuSAR.org. The patches will also be for sale at the Lost Hills Sheriff’s Open House Nov. 18.
