Estee Lauder Celebrates 20 Years of Breast Cancer Awareness

It's been 20 years since Evelyn Lauder created The Estee Lauder Companies' Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign, which is now active in over 70 countries worldwide. It's a testimony to the work Lauder and her company have done to make October into a monthlong platform for Breast Cancer Awareness.

That journey began in 1992, when 44,000 women in the U.S. were dying of breast cancer each year and nobody was paying attention. Twenty years later, BCA has raised $35 million for research and education and paralyzing fear has been replaced by hope and inspiration.

At an illumination ceremony at the Empire State Building on October 1, New York City officially proclaimed the day as "The Estée Lauder Companies’ Breast Cancer Awareness (BCA) Campaign Day."

The house that Lauder built then kicked off Breast Cancer Awareness Month 2012 with an interactive exhibit this week in New York (at top) showing The Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign's efforts over the past 20 years. The local marketing was "a big thank to the many people who joined us today and we look forward to sharing our inspiring past with anyone and everyone touched by breast cancer."

The campaign is now digital as well as global, as the video below, featuring model and actress Elizabeth Hurley, Estée Lauder executive chairman William P. Lauder, and Maureen Case, president of specialty brands Bobbi Brown, La Mer, and Jo Malone highlights inspirational stories, milestones and memories of Evelyn Lauder, who passed away in 2011.

Everyone is encouraged to visit Facebook.com/BCACampaign to post a message and BCA will donate $1 to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation for every milestone of courage posted to the virtual timeline in October (up to a maximum of $25,000).

Below, video tributes to Lauder’s understanding back in 1992 that ‘no one was caring for the caregivers’ has created a movement of compassion and commitment that is affecting the whole world, one woman at a time.