The following message is from Randy Cope, CEO of American Consolidated Media, and will also be included in October’s ACM Pulse company newsletter. I thought I would share with you his message, because it pertains to the recently launched “Stories of Survival,” the Breast Cancer Awareness section produced by ACM Newsroom and available for use by all ACM newspapers.

Here is Mr. Cope’s message:

There is something about the Breast Cancer Awareness promotion that many of our papers are doing in October that makes me glad to be in the business.  The reason I am so into this section is because it focuses on survival stories.   It is our chance to spread hope to families in our communities that have to take on this scary adversary.

I have not seen any of these stories yet, but I know they will be powerful.  They will not only be about survival, but will be about women and families whose lives were forever enriched by having gone through this journey.  There will be stories of pain, but also stories of hope.  They will tell of walking down dark hallways of fear that surprisingly lead to bright rooms of meaning for life – rooms they didn’t know existed.

Thanks to the new skills our news staffs are developing these stories will be told in a whole new way this year.  Not only will they appear in print, but I’m sure many will appear in videos, that will allow us to hear in the teller’s own voice how they were impacted from time in their life.

Certainly our company, our industry, our community is experiencing the downside of an economic cycle, but we can’t lose sight of why it is we do what we do – to make a positive impact on our communities.  I challenge you to use this awareness program to find new ways to do just that.

The following link will take you to the page where you can download the section and materials needed to publish:  http://acmnewsroom.com/2011/09/16/dont-forget-breast-cancer-awareness-8-page-broadsheet-edition-now-available/