Overview
Judi Shils founded the Marin Cancer Project : Search for the Cause in 2002 after attending a meeting where County leadership officially announced that Marin's breast cancer rates had risen 60% in 8 years. When the audience inquired about what was being done to reverse the trend, the response from leadership was “we have many questions, not a lot of answers and not enough funding to do the necessary studies.”
Inspired by her friend who was waging a battle with breast cancer, Judi decided then that she needed to get involved, not just assume that everything was being taken care of and that in time the statistics would magically reverse themselves.
In November 2002, 6 months after the organization was formed, having mobilized over 2,000 volunteers, the Marin Cancer Project went door-to-door surveying close to 65,000 households in one day. The task was to raise awareness, let residents know some ways to mitigate risk, respond to a short survey and raise funds to map the cancer rates in each Marin city and town. Over $150,000 was raised and MCP started a partnership with the Family Health Outcomes Project at UCSF.
Since then, we have completed two years of in-depth research around the Peer Cities and Counties Project and are close to completion of the Cancer Maps. We launched the Teens for Safe Cosmetics Campaign, educate around precautionary lifestyle practices, and launched the Search for the Cause Necklace as a fundraising and awareness builder..We recently launched the Healthy Schools Initiative to use the school environments in our community as a palette for inspiring research. We have formed alliances and built coalitions with other NPO’s, local organizations, businesses, political leaders, scientists, medical doctors, academic institutions and most importantly people.
Mission
Our mission is to raise awareness regarding the high incidence of all cancers in Marin County. We will give voice to community concerns, and together search for the cause, seek solutions, and strive to become a healthier, more sustainable community.
Purpose
- Investigate how exposures in our daily lives increase the risk of cancer
- Reduce harmful environmental conditions
- Educate communities on healthy lifestyle choices