Odenville Police to wear pink badges for Breast Cancer Awareness Month

By Shaun Szkolnik for the Journal

ODENVILLE – October has long been a month associated with the autumnal colors of red, yellow and orange. More and more, however, it is becoming known for a different color. That is because October is breast cancer awareness month and the color pink has become a valuable tool in raising awareness about the disease.

Individuals, businesses and organizations have taken to using the color on everything from pens to ribbons and even football cleats. This year the Odenville Police Department is joining in the crusade and will be swapping their silver and gold shields for pink badges.

As Odenville Chief of Police Adam Pardue explained, “Cancer touches a lot of families nowadays. The citizens are always showing their support for the police department, in various ways, and we just felt like this is a way for us to show our support to cancer survivors for the month of October. It’s known as breast cancer awareness month but we support anybody who has had any kind of cancer, we support them and want to let them know that we are thinking about them.”

All of the officers will be wearing the pink badges and are pleased to be participating in an activity that will raise awareness and aid in prevention. The public reaction has been highly positive as well. Pardue said, “We’ve had a lot of Facebook reactions and people out in public saying ‘Hey, I like that badge,’ and ‘thank you for the awareness that you have.’” Pardue continued, “We’ve even had some other police departments comment on it and I think you’ll start seeing a lot more police departments doing this.

Now that the Odenville Police Department has their pink badges the plan is to wear them every year for Breast Cancer Awareness month.