Beren Students Host Free Skin Cancer Screening

On Sunday, Feb. 26, I, along with three fellow students at Robert M. Beren Academy (Sophia Collins, Jeffrey Collins and Dina Kirshner) will be holding a community-wide, free skin cancer screening. It will be a first-come, first-serve basis and is under the generous leadership of dermatologist Dr. Riva Collins.

After my mother was diagnosed with skin cancer, the four of us were sitting around and realized that we all knew someone that was affected by skin cancer. Jeffrey and Sophia's grandfather had it and they had a relative that died from melanoma, and Dina felt that keeping the skin healthy was important for a positive body image. We looked into the statistics of skin cancer and found the numbers staggering - 3.5 million people are diagnosed with skin cancer every year! We wanted to do something to make an impact in the community and in our school, so Sophia, Jeffrey, Dina and I joined to create this skin cancer screening.

In addition, we are creating this screening to promote positive body images among teens. Today, so much pressure is being put upon us and our body image. We are pressured to use tanning beds and other things that can have a catastrophic impact on our skin’s health. We hope that this screening will not only help those find skin cancers, but also promote a healthy skin lifestyle.

We decided to hold the screening on a Sunday, counter to many other free screening which take place on Saturdays. We feel it is important to have such programs on Sundays so that all people can have access to them. The screening will be at Kelsey Seybold Clinic on Holcombe Blvd from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. There will be refreshments, raffle prizes and sunscreen samples. We hope you can join us!