Redondo Beach Police Officer Kyle Lofstrom has made many appearances around campus, his pink hair making him hard to forget. Lofstrom dyed his hair pink at the start of October to raise awareness for breast cancer.

“My wife likes to dye her hair,” Lofstrom said. “So, I thought, ‘what if I dye my hair pink in October if we raise a certain amount of money?’”

The Redondo Beach Police Department (RBPD) set a fundraiser goal of $5,000 for the month of October. If the goal was reached, Officer Lofstrom agreed to dye his hair pink in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. By the first day of October, they had already met their goal.

“At the beginning of the month, to have raised that much money already on top of whatever we’re going to do during the month, is pretty cool,” Lofstrom said.

Breast cancer is an issue that is personal to Lofstrom. There have been lives lost to breast cancer at RBPD affecting everyone that works there. In turn, Lofstrom began to think about his wife and children, and what would happen to his family if something happened to his wife or himself.

“That’s when something like that became much more real,” Lofstrom said. “Before, it didn’t matter as much if something happened to me. But now, I think about what impact it would have if something happened to me or my wife, like what would happen if my children grew up without a dad or mom.”

Lofstrom would like to tell people struggling with breast cancer or know someone who is struggling with the disease to not give up.

“I love you,” Lofstrom says to people struggling with breast cancer. “Don’t give up. Please.” Lofstrom raised money for people like freshman Carly Arthur’s mom, who was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was young.

Within RUHS, coaches and teachers work to do their part to spread awareness for breast cancer as well. For example, football coach Matt Ballard believes that it is very important to raise awareness for breast cancer. So,the RUHS junior varsity and varsity football teams played their pink-out football games on Oct. 7, 2021 and Oct. 8, where the JV players wore pink socks and the varsity members wore pink sleeves.

“We all have mothers, we all have sisters, we all have females in our lives,” Ballard said. “It’s important to know why it’s not just something we do in October with football. There’s a reason behind it, and it affects all of us at some point. Most of us have some personal story about it.”

Arthur experienced breast cancer from a young age. When she was twelve years old, her mom was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Arther’s mom had surgery the day after Halloween; the night of Halloween, Arthur couldn’t stop worrying about the future. 

“[My family and I] were all just at some random house and all of a sudden I just started bawling. My mom had to take me home to tell me that it would be okay,” Arthur said. “It made me super scared about the future and if there would be a future,” Arthur said.

Arthur had never come close to breast cancer before, so when her mother was diagnosed, she was shocked.

“There hasn’t really been anyone in my family that has had cancer,” Arthur said. “The idea of cancer became more real, instead of just something you hear about.”

Arthur’s mother didn’t have to go through chemotherapy to recover, and now, she’s fully recovered.

“Luckily for me, everything was okay in the end, but that’s not how it always is,” Arthur said. “I would just say, if you know someone who has cancer, be there for them. If you had a bad day, don’t take it out on them.”