Source: Emory Wheel

Avon does more than just sell makeup. The Avon Foundation recently gave a $750,000 grant to the Emory Winship Cancer Institute and the Avon Comprehensive Breast Center at Grady Memorial Hospital.

The grant, which is part of Campaign Emory’s $1.6 billion fund-raising effort, will be used sponsor staffing, research and community outreach education and clinical programs.

The Avon Foundation has given about $11 million to Emory Winship and Grady since 2000. The Center at Grady must apply for the grant each year.

The Avon Comprehensive Breast Cancer Center, which opened in 2003, is one of eight Avon breast centers in the country and is meant to help “under-served” residents of Dekalb and Fulton counties, according to Sheryl Gabram-Mendola, director of the Avon Comprehensive Breast Center at Grady and principal investigator for the Avon grant.

The grant has helped increase the number of biopsies, mammograms and ultrasounds from 11,000 in 2005 to 16,000 this past year. Also, about 20 percent more patients have visited the center in the past year than in 2005.

“The program has grown very quickly,” Gabram-Mendola said.