If there ever was a cause to celebrate, it is happening this month.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

With over 2.5 million survivors in the world, that gives individuals reason to stand behind the cause. But for every handful of survivors, there is a life lost.

Since the 1940s, cases of breast cancer in the United States have increased over 1 percent each year. It wasn’t until recently that each year the number of women diagnosed would rise significantly (though it dropped off for a bit in the late 1990s and early 2000s).

In this year alone in the United States, about 207,090 new cases of breast cancer were discovered, according to the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s website statistics. And between 2002 and 2006, 115,000 new cases were reported in just our state and that was about middle of the road as far as what other states reported.

Donate money. Wear a pink ribbon. Participate in a breast cancer awareness event. Do something this month to benefit the research being put into the disease that not only plagues the lives of countless women, but their family members too.

You can learn more about giving back at ww5.komen.org.