Let’s list off all the symbolic tokens people wear to show their alleged commitment to various causes. OTTOMH there’s:
Red ribbon: AIDS awareness
Yellow ribbon: “Support the troops”
Blue ribbon: “Support the troops by bringing them home”
Pink ribbon: breast cancer
Yellow LIVESTRONG bracelet: cancer
Red bracelet: blood donation
I seem to remember orange ribbons for domestic violence awareness but I could be wrong.
A cancer ribbon list can be found here . I particularly like the choice of clear for lung cancer.
Yellow for bladder cancer? Funny.
Any ideas who all decides what colors go with what diseases?
White bracelets for the One Campaign–“the campaign to make poverty history.”
There’s the black LIVEWRONG bracelet: “Represent what you want, when you want, how you want. It’s just a bracelet.” It’s also there for cycling in general, cancer or no.
My sister brought me a dark blue bracelet that says “ONE NATION UNDER GOD” with red and white stripes on the other side and white stars between the strips and the words, on the Fourth of July. I don’t know if it’s meant to promote awareness of anything or just to make a profit off people who like the bracelets.
Also, anyone who visits The Hunger Site and its associates relief sites will see that there’s a light blue “Cultivate Peace” bracelet (Hunger Site), a pink “Celebrate Courage” bracelet for breast cancer, another light blue (although it appears a slightly different shade) “Nurture, Nourish, Cherish” bracelet for child health, an orange “Open Books Open Minds” bracelet, a light green Treehugger bracelet and a purple “Paws for Support” bracelet.
National Wildlife Federation has a lovely green one.
Green ribbons are for Organ Donation Awareness.
Oh, hey, one I remembered from yeeeeeears ago, some group put out an AIDS bracelet, in silver and gold tones, with the name and dates of someone who’d died engraved on it. I may still have mine in a drawer or a box somewhere.
There are rainbow mottled bracelets that support same-sex marriage.
From what I’ve heard, most such bracelets sold are actually fraudulent – the money collected does not end up with the organization/cause that they are supposedly supporting.
And I have a bit of personal experience that supports this. I once saw these bracelets being delivered to a discount gas station. The delivery was coming from a local company that makes such things (they do a lot of political candidate items), and the manager paid them in cash from the till. There were multiple colors of bracelets in the delivery. It seems to me that if these were legitimate fundraisers for causes, the bracelets would be supplied thru the American Cancer Society, the National Wildlife Federation, so that some of the money would flow back to them.
Does anyone know if any money from sales of these actually goes to the cause, or are they just ripoffs by the sellers?
Purple: Breast cancer.
My little brother wears one. I think he originally meant it to be ironic, but I had to be a joykiller and point out that guys can (and do) get breast cancer.