The Cards will play the Milwaukee Brewers in an evening game that starts at 7:15 p.m. SLOCA is selling 500 tickets in Sections 335, 337, 339 and 340. Each ticket costs $30 and includes a hot dog and soft drink; $9 of that price is tax-deductible.

SLOCA members will be able to watch the Cards take the field for batting practice before the game, and representatives will be recognized at pre-game ceremonies. The lucky winner of a bid at SLOCA’s gala and auction on April 21 will get to throw out the first pitch.

This event was started in 2003 by SLOCA’s founder, the late Christina Carr.

You can purchase tickets online or by contacting Grace Katzenberger at 314-892-8345 or at swtldy@swbell.net.

Volunteers were to staff a SLOCA booth at the show from 11 a.m. Friday through 5 p.m. Sunday. Judging from the first hours of the show, SLOCA’s efforts to distribute awareness literature, tiny plastic teal ribbon pins and teal gel bracelets and to sell our popular Fight Like A Girl t-shirts succeeded beyond all expectations.

Survivors and those who have watched family members fight the fight heard story after story of women who’d lost their mothers to ovarian cancer, of women who had no idea that a Pap smear does not screen for ovarian cancer, of women who’d had a hysterectomy but not an oophorectomy (removal of the ovaries). Some stories were poignant, some triumphant, others just cautiously hopeful. Several shoppers sought out the SLOCA booth, which made a repeat appearance at a strategic corner of a busy thoroughfare.

The raffle for the hand-made quilt donated to SLOCA will come to a close at 4:30 p.m. Sunday when SLOCA President Beth Hudson draws the winning ticket. T

Tribute cards may be purchased in packs of 10 to send in honor or memory of an individual or program. Do you want to honor an oncology nurse, a doctor, a woman with a diagnosis of ovarian cancer? Want to remember an anniversary, birthday or other important date?

Purchase 10 cards and envelopes for$25, and keep them on hand. The cards are attractively designed with SLOCA’s logo on the front, shown at right. The inside allows you to inform the recipient that a donation was made to SLOCA in honor or memory of someone. On the back (bottom left) are printed SLOCA’s mission statement and the symptoms of ovarian caner.

To order, call Louise Mass at 314.469.6633 or Ellen Lourie at 314. 434.1947.

As SLOCA prepares to observe its 10th anniversary, OCNA interviewed SLOCA President Beth Hudson about the organization’s founding and how it embraces its threefold mission of spreading awareness of ovarian cancer, funding research and supporting survivors.

Below is a photo of the seven founders of SLOCA in front of the quilt they stitched to raise money to start the organization.

Tickets for this year’s 10th Anniversary Gala & Auction, planned for Saturday at Ameren Corporate Headquarters, are all but sold out. As of Friday evening, three tickets remained and can be purchased at the door at $125 each.

The gala’s theme will be Life Is YourCanvas – Live It OUT LOUD.

SLOCA will honor Ameren’s Dennis Weisenborn (at right), Ameren’s vice president of supply services, for his unwavering support and assistance to SLOCA for the past several years.

The Cardinals’ Mike Jorgensen and KSHE founder Nancy Pool are the honorary co-chairpersons.

Mike is a former manager and now assistant to the general manger for the St. Louis Cardinals. His wife, Brenda, passed away in 2011 after a long battle with ovarian cancer. The Jorgensen family created and sponsor the annual FamiliesROC race that funds ovarian cancer research.

Nancy is a recent inductee into the St. Louis Media Halls of Fame for broadcast. She is the former president of KADI-FM and the vice president and general manager of KSHE-FM and  WIL-AM. She is a survivor of ovarian cancer.

Party Details

Living Out Loud is SLOCA’s premiere fund-raising event. This year, as last, it will be held in the beautiful glass atrium of the Ameren Corporate Headquarters, off Chouteau Avenue west of Tucker near downtown St. Louis.

The event will begin at 6 p.m. Partiers will enjoy an open bar and hors d’oeuvres as they peruse the tables of silent auction items. At 7 p.m., the focus will shift to the banquet room where guests will feast on a sumptuous dinner. The evening will wrap up with a fast-paced oral auction. Following the practice started in 2011, the auctioneer will conclude the oral auction by asking guests to help fund SLOCA’s programs with donations at various levels of giving — a segment of the program dubbed Fund-A-Need.

Auction Items

Jeremy Rutherford, a hockey writer whose mother died of ovarian cancer, led the effort to secure unique and otherwise unobtainable auction items. Among them are a group visit at a fire station, with a ride on a fire truck and grub cooked and served by the fire fighters. Another is a virtual Top Gun flight simulator experience.

Among other oral auction items will be the right to throw out the first pitch at Busch Stadium when the Cards take on the Brewers on Sept. 7, which is Ovarian Cancer Awareness Night at the Ballpark; a Cardinals partyroom package for 20; and a Blues package including a signed jersey, trip to the broadcast booth, tickets and between-periods ride on the Zamboni.

The William Shearburn Gallery has donated a $2,500 piece of artwork by Sal Ventura (featured on the homepage). Columns is an abstract composition in watercolor of the Manufacturers Bank & Trust at 1731 Broadway in St. Louis.

Fund-raising Goal

Beth Hudson, SLOCA’s president, and event coordinator Allison Hershberger have set a goal of raising $100,000 at the event. That’s significantly more than in years past, but it is needed to meet SLOCA’s ambitious goals of meeting its threefold mission square-on. The mission statement reflects a commitment to impact ovarian cancer survivorship by promoting awareness of early warning signs and standard of care, funding ovarian cancer research, and supporting survivors.

“We are stretching to make this our most successful fundraiser ever,” says Beth. “We feel we’re making headway in raising awareness of ovarian cancer in the St. Louis area, but we could do so much more with more funding.”

SLOCA is a non-profit, 501(c)3 organization. It is an all-volunteer organization of women impacted by a diagnosis of ovarian cancer, and their families and friends, along with medical professionals.

Turns out chickens and women have a lot in common, physiology department chair Dale “Buck” Hales has discovered.

Hales began searching more than 10 years ago for an animal model to study the link between inflammation and ovarian cancer in women. He focused on the 2-year-old hen, which he found has ovulated about the same number of times as a woman who has reached menopause, when ovarian cancer manifests.

This year’s card features a photograph of St. Louis’ famed Gateway Arch set in the serenity of a wintry snow. Inside, the message reads “Best Wishes for a Peaceful and Joyous Holiday Season.” The photograph was shot by SLOCA volunteer Rudy Bess.

Thank you to all who purchased the cards. We wish everyone happy holidays and good health!

Inside, the message reads “Best Wishes for a Peaceful and Joyous Holiday Season.” On the back is a credit for the photographer, SLOCA volunteer Rudy Bess, and SLOCA’s logo and web address.

The cards sell by the dozen for $15, which includes shipping and handling. You may order sets of cards online.

If you’d like to order in bulk or have the card or envelope (or both) personalized, call SLOCA at 314-995-6220. Leave a message with your name, phone number and how many cards you want; a SLOCA volunteer will call you back.

The quilt was made by Pamela Koenig Eusterbrock. She used fabric in the Moda Collection created by Nancy Halverson called “The Angels Among Us.” It features soft teal, aqua, rose and tan prints.

Raffle tickets are selling at $1 apiece or 6 for $5.

You can purchase tickets from a SLOCA board member or at most SLOCA events between now and the WWSS weekend, Feb. 24-26. The winning ticket will be drawn at 4:30 p.m. Sunday at the show. You need not be present to win.

Dillard’s Jerry Talamante will present runway-style fashion shows. Tom O’Neal, news anchor on Fox 2, will emcee.

A boutique featuring about 30 vendors will be open before and after the luncheon and fashion show, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Tickets are $50 apiece, and tables can be reserved for groups of 10 or 12.

You may purchase tickets online; by mail at P.O. Box 270067, St. Louis, MO, 63127; or by phone at 314-849-3970 or 314-894-3024.