The Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center’s entry is currently in second place in the Pink Glove Online Dance Video Competition, as the contest enters its home stretch with voting ending Friday.
The Pink Glove competition is a nationwide contest in which more than 260 organizations submitted their own take of the original Pink Glove Dance Video filmed three years ago that spawned the competition, according to the competition’s website.
The Pink Glove Video is a dance compilation where participants come together with synchronized choreography, all wearing pink gloves. Hershey Medical Center’s take of the video was filmed to the backdrop of Katy Perry’s “Part of Me.”
More than 600 staff, faculty and students participated in the filming of the video, which took place over eight days in early September, Kathy Law said, the director of Nursing and Perioperative Services at Hershey and the executive sponsor of the Medical Center’s Pink Glove effort.
Bora Lim, a hematology-oncology fellow at the Penn State Hershey Cancer Institute, participated in the video and said it was a rewarding experience.
“It was for a good cause,” Lim said, “and ultimately that’s what it is about.”
The company that sponsors the competition, Medline,is an international manufacturer of medical supplies based in Illinois and provides the prize money: $10,000 for first place, $5,000 for second, and $2,000 for third, according to its website.
A contest winner is decided by how many votes a video receives on the online poll, where anyone is allowed to vote for the organization of their choice once daily.
Penn State’s Hershey Medical Center currently has more than 8,000 votes, Law said.
Law said Penn State is only about 6,000 votes behind South Carolina’s Lexington Medical Center, who was last year’s winner and is this year’s current leader.
The competition’s winnings will not go the Hershey Medical Center if they are to win, however, and will instead be awarded to Pennsylvania Breast Cancer Coalition — the organization that Hershey chose to sponsor.
The PBCC was chosen because a number of Penn State staff who participate in the Coalition, as well as patients and employees involved in it who are breast cancer survivors, Law said.
According to the mission statement on its website, the PBCC is a statewide non-profit organization that would likely use the awaited award money to fund educational programming, legislative advocacy and breast cancer research grants.
Lim said the PBCC provides another important purpose by creating a strong and open community for both sufferers and survivors of breast cancer in Pennsylvania.
“Breast cancer can be a very particular and sensitive issue for women,” Lim said. “Breast cancer, specifically, has a lot of psychosocial effects related to it.”
Sherry Weber, a systems analyst at the Medical Center and another participant in Hershey’s video entry, is a breast cancer survivor who was diagnosed in early January. She said her experience participating was powerful and inspiring.
“It was great to see how many healthcare workers came together and how much they really care about the patients that they serve,” Weber said. “It was just a lot of fun and after you go through something that is not fun at all, it’s nice to have something bring a smile to your face.”
The idea of the Pink Glove Video competition started three years ago when Medline filmed the original Pink Glove Dance video that featured more than 200 employees at the Providence St. Vincent Medical center in Portland, Ore., according to the competition’s website. The video’s YouTube page now sports nearly 14 million views.
Last year was the first time the contest was held, according to the website. It quickly grew in size and success as more than half a million votes were placed on contest videos last year. This year, the contest is only growing with more than 120 new entries.
October is national Breast Cancer Awareness month.
Penn State is still in the race. The link to see Penn State’s entry and place a vote can be found by visiting http://pinkglovedance.com/competition/vote.php.
