This year marks the 20^th Anniversary of the collaboration between Breast Cancer Network Australia and Bakers Delight, with each bakery around the country turning pink for Breast Cancer Awareness month.

Bakers Delight sold limited edition Pink Buns and collected coin donations from October 8 to 28, with 100% of the sales being provided to BCNA.

This year’s Pink Bun campaign aimed to remind people that breast cancer affects not just those diagnosed, but family, friends and the wider community too.

BCNA chief executive Kirsten Pilatti said Bakers Delight had played an important role in founding the organisation.

“When Lyn Swinbourne was starting BCNA, Bakers Delight founders Roger and Leslie Gillespie offered her a desk and computer to get the organisation started, and it has grown since then,” she said.

“Over the 20-year partnership Bakers Delight has raised over $20 million for BCNA and with that incredible support we have been able to be there every step of the way for Australians affected by breast cancer.”

People showed their support during this year’s awareness month by donating to the tins in store, buying the pink buns, holding fundraisers and sharing the hashtag #PinkBunsforBCNA.

Virtual pink buns and fundraisers were another way for the community to show their support during COVID-19 restrictions.

“The virtual parties were embraced by the corporate community who saw the opportunity to connect employees working from home and include staff from interstate,” Ms Pilatti said.

Rockingham Bakers Delight employee Tiala Skey said that those donating often emptied the change they had in their purses straight into the charity tins.

All money raised this year will go towards providing more support and information to those going through breast cancer, by funding the My Journey online tool, a free resource providing up-to-date and reliable information tailored to each person’s own personal path.

Breast cancer survivor and founder of the Groovy Booby Bus, Donna Falconer works in her local community and travels the country raising awareness about breast cancer.

“It’s all about starting the conversation and getting people to be aware, knowing that it can happen to anyone,” she said.

“Cancer doesn’t discriminate, it doesn’t know your age, sex orientation, whether you’re overweight, underweight, it doesn’t know any of your lifestyle factors.”

Ms Falconer is an avid supporter of BCNA and the Bakers Delight pink bun campaign.

“Last year I went over to Mudgee, had a couple of days over there in the Bakers delight promoting it,” she said.

This year, due to COVID-19, Ms Falconer showed her support by buying Pink Buns and holding a BCNA tribute event – a ‘mini field of women’ in her front yard – something she brought to her hometown of Dubbo in New South Wales four years before she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Ms Falconers contribution to BCNA each year is her way of saying thank you for the support she received while going through breast cancer and for the support they give to others.

“BCNA and Bakers Delight have been overwhelmed by the community response to this year’s campaign,” Ms Pilatti said. 

More than $1 million raised is expected to be raised by this year’s campaign.