With temperatures on the rise, a Kelowna mother is raising awareness about sun safety in hopes of saving other families from the pain hers has gone through.
Karen Wells started Morgan’s Mole Patrol Foundation after losing her son.
“We lost our son Morgan to misdiagnosed melanoma in 2016. It happened very suddenly. At that time, we didn’t know a mole could kill you,” said Wells.
“I tried to channel my grief into something more positive and I thought, well, what can I do? I can’t provide shade for everybody, but sunscreen is something that I can do.”
This year, the foundation has installed three sunscreen dispensers at various locations across Kelowna. They look a little like hand sanitizer dispensers.
Morgan’s Mole Patrol sunscreen dispensers can be found at the Kelowna Visitor Information Center, Summerhill Pyramid Winery, Kelowna Golf and Country Club, and will soon be at the Kelowna International Airport and local university campus.
“We wanted to cover an area where there’s a lot of foot traffic and the Visitor Information Center, it’s quite the hub of energy down there. There’s lots of people coming and going, or they have tourist groups coming in through the area. It fits really well with us because they’re not allowed to sell sunscreen,” said Wells.
“The Kelowna Golf and Country Club, there were personal reasons there — and then Summerhill Winery, he heard me on the radio, and he called right away and said ‘I want one’ and so we said OK. That’s a really good high-volume area as well, gets lots of tourists through their beautiful spot.”
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Morgan’s Mole Patrol is currently seeking more sponsors and donors to install more sunscreen dispensers throughout Kelowna.
Meanwhile, five sunscreen dispensers have been installed around Penticton by another foundation, as part of a joint project to fight skin cancer and make sunscreen more accessible.
Kathy Barnard founded the Save Your Skin Foundation following her own battle with cancer.
“I never really liked the skin I was born with, and I tried frantically in the first 40 years of my life to change the color. I wanted to be darker, and little did I know that that would have almost cost me my life three times and caused a lot of grief for my family over the last 20 years,” said Barnard.
“I was diagnosed in 2003. I was given six months to live. In 2005 the cancer had spread to my lungs, my liver, my bones, my adrenal gland, and kidney. We started the foundation because I’m incredibly lucky to be alive. I’m the longest survivor of Stage 4 melanoma.”
According to Barnard, the foundation’s main goal is not only education and awareness but also early detection.
“It’s ultimately the most important part. Skin cancer is now really prevalent in young people, that was never the case before. It’s the largest growing, it’s the fastest growing cancer. We even have more cases now of skin cancer than breast, prostate colon (cancers) combined,” said Barnard.
“We’re seeing more and more skin cancers and again in younger demographics, and that’s really concerning.”
Save Your Skin has installed 30 new dispensers in eight cities across four provinces this year, including five in Penticton.
The Save Your Skin dispensers can be found outside of the Penticton Chamber of Commerce near the Peach, Travel Penticton, Barefoot Beach, Skaha Meadows Golf Course and the Penticton Speedway.
“We picked those five locations for no particular reason, except that we had connections, and we knew the Chamber was close to the walk down on the Okanagan Lake,” said Barnard.
“We’re still trying to figure out how we can get something down at the other end of Skaha Beach.”
Barnard went on to say that the foundation continues to look for more spaces and opportunities to place its sunscreen dispensers.
“I would like some of them installed for some of those vulnerable populations,” she said. “I’m trying to get in touch with people in that sort of space to get a better understanding of where they might go and how that might look because I think that’s super important.”
However, both Barnard and Wells emphasize that relying solely on sunscreen though is not enough.
“On each of our sunscreen dispensers we have a little bit of information about the five ways to protect yourself from skin cancer,” said Wells. “Which is putting on a shirt, putting on sunglasses, wearing sunscreen, (wearing) a hat, and seeking shade. Very simple things to do.”
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