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Uptown businesses 'go pink'

Luna Blu Salon displays products it is selling to promote Breast Cancer awareness throughout the month of October.
Luna Blu Salon displays products it is selling to promote Breast Cancer awareness throughout the month of October.

Emily Imes

Luna Blu Salon displays products it is selling to promote Breast Cancer awareness throughout the month of October.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and local businesses in Oxford are doing their part to help spread awareness and raise money for research.

Luna Blu Salon, located at 115 W. Spring St., is exhibiting the slogan "Cut-Color-Cure" for the month. $1 from each cut or color goes to cancer research, through the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation, according to Lisa Ciampa, owner of Luna Blu. She said her reasons for giving back to cancer research are personal.

"A really good friend of mine had a double mastectomy," Ciampa said. "We saw this T-shirt one day in a store and both laughed. It said, 'Yes, they're fake! The real ones tried to kill me.' We're selling that shirt in our shop.

Cancer's just a bad thing. You hear that word, and you cringe. We really hope we can help women."

Luna Blu is offering T-shirts for $15. All proceeds go to the Susan G. Komen foundation and do not profit the salon. Ciampa added Luna Blu has other specials going on this month to entice salon-goers to spend more money than usual for the cause.

"If you spend more than $100 at the salon you get a T-shirt," Ciampa said. "Also, if you spend more than $300 you'll get a pink robe."

In addition, the Bumble and Bumble hair products and OPI nail polish Luna Blue sells have their own deals going on this month.

"We love to give back to the community," Ciampa said. "We predominantly focus on children's and women's causes, and we donate to a lot of cancer causes. That comes from me, as an owner. It's very important for me to give back."

Kroger is also doing its part to promote Breast Cancer Awareness month.

Ed Begley, manager of the Oxford Kroger, said Kroger has a program with Kraft and Kellogg's brands to sell special food boxes in all of Kroger's stores.

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"This program started two years ago through our corporate office," Begley said. "We'll top out at a $3 million contribution to the Giving Hope a Hand foundation."

The pink boxes are on sale on the shelves of Kroger and feature stories of Kroger associates who have been diagnosed with breast cancer. The boxes display their stories and give cancer detection hints.

Kroger also has a "Giving Hope" display of hats, water bottles, magnets, hair accessories and other miscellaneous items. A portion of these proceeds will also go toward the Giving Hope a Hand foundation.

"We've had positive feedback," Begley said. "People have been happy to see the displays out. We've had the display out for a little over a week and we've already sold probably half of it."

Begley said the Kroger company likes to give back to the communities it is located in and that Kroger has also supported other cancer causes, such as Relay For Life.

"There are so many women that we work with in the Kroger family, even in the Cincinnati area, that are affected by breast cancer," Begley said. "I can even think of seven or eight of them who have been affected. When you think about the people you work with it brings it all home, the reality of the disease."

Ciampa said Breast Cancer Awareness month is not just to honor those who have been diagnosed with cancer, but women in general.

"Unfortunately, us women, we tend to forget about ourselves," Ciampa said. "We're so busy taking care of husbands, boyfriends, kids (and) other people that we kind of put ourselves last. It's okay, women. This month is all about you."


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