Mondee Tilley | The News

Aaron Routh, vice president of Hutchens Cleaners, poses with a little black dress that is hanging by one of the thousands of pink breast cancer awareness month hangers.

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As National Breast Cancer Awareness Month is in October, Hutchens Laundry & Cleaners purchased 10,000 hangers to promote breast cancer awareness. He ordered twice as many as he did last year when he began the program.

Part of the proceeds go to the American Breast Cancer Foundation.

Aaron Routh, vice president of Hutchens, said on Thursday, that last year he ran out of hangers before the end of the month. Not wanting that to happen again, he ordered more this year.

So far the pink hangers have been well received, Routh said.

“We felt this was a worthy cause. We just want to remind women of how important it is to get their yearly mammograms,” he said.

Routh said since 70 percent of his business is women, he felt this was an important cause.

Part of the proceeds from the hangers he purchased from his distributor N.S. Farrington will go to the American Breast Cancer Foundation. He said the pink hangers cost a little more, but it was worth it for the cause. He said the distributor not only gives a portion of the proceeds to the ABCF, but it also gives $1 for every box of hangers purchased by dry cleaning businesses.

James Thomas with N.S. Farrington, a family-owned, Winston-Salem-based business, said the company went into promoting breast cancer awareness with the hangers and then went into making dry cleaning poly-bags for the same reason.

“It took off really well. Last year was our best year doing this program,” said Thomas. “We are really glad that Aaron is helping promote the program.”

Thomas said he saw a study that said one out of eight women are diagnosed with breast cancer, that’s why they feel so passionate about reminding women to get their yearly mammograms.

Routh added that this program is a nationwide program and countless dollars will go toward breast cancer prevention and awareness.

Contact Mondee Tilley at mtilley@mtairynews.com or at 719-1930.