Fueled by a creative mind and generous spirit, Alisha Moreland turned a simple idea into a growing means of raising awareness for the importance of early breast cancer detection. By Ellie Hensley | Photo by taylor allen | Styling by Alfredo mubarah
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f you walk by a bright pink pumpkin nestled in an otherwise typical Halloween display at the bank or grocery store, will you notice it? What if it was covered in pink polka dots, glitter and rhinestones? There’s a serious message behind the fuchsia and feathers adorning Alisha Moreland’s pumpkins, but creating them with her is a good time for all. Moreland’s passion for the project and her infectious creativity turn what could be a somber advocacy group meeting into what she’s dubbed a “pumpkin painting party.” Every October for the past five years, Moreland and her helpers, called “Pink Warriors,” spray paint and decorate hundreds of pumpkins with a unique artistic flair and then attach a note that
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reads, “Encourage a woman you care about to get her mammogram, or schedule yours today!” If her pumpkins help just one woman get herself checked, then in Moreland’s eyes, the effort was well worth it.
One was too many Moreland was working as a graphic designer for the Columbia Daily Tribune in 2007 when her manager, Vicky Gibson, was diagnosed with breast cancer after finding a lump on her chest in the shower. She received chemotherapy through a surgically implanted port, went through radiation treatments and lost her hair. She underwent a lumpectomy to remove the tumor as well as her lymph nodes, which caused her to get lymphedema. She eventually beat the cancer, but her long battle made Moreland think: Would it have been easier to beat if Gibson had caught it earlier? What could she do to prevent other women from going through the same thing? Watching one friend and colleague struggle for her life so bravely was more than enough. Settling on a game plan was the easy part. “What’s something for fall?” Moreland asks. “Pumpkins. And pink automatically stands for breast cancer awareness.” That was the beginning of Alisha’s Pink Pumpkin Painting Party. She encouraged friends and family to get involved and started a Facebook page to let anyone interested in volunteering know what time to come to her house in Sturgeon, Mo., to paint and decorate in her large shed. When each party is over, Moreland sends everyone home with
pumpkins to distribute in places where many people will see them, such as gas stations and doctors’ offices. “When I found out Alisha was painting pink pumpkins, tears came to my eyes and then smiles,” Gibson said in an email. Moreland’s pumpkins are the perfect project to engage her creative side and make her feel a sense of artistic release. The graphic designer in her couldn’t resist working out a color scheme that was meaningful to her. Pink stands for breast cancer awareness; black is for cancer because it reminds her of pain and darkness; silver represents hope or “a silver lining;” and white represents purity and health. As long as they follow the color scheme, volunteers have complete artistic license when decorating their pumpkins. Fake pearls, bras, ribbons — anything goes. “I have no shame!” Moreland says. “Anything I can hot glue on a pumpkin that is pink, that’s what I put on there.”
Pink Warriors You could call Moreland’s parties her side project. Her actual jobs include serving as art director for the Business Times Company; as wife to her husband, Paul; and mother to her two children: Lilli, 8, and Brodie, 6 months. Some days, her only free time for pink pumpkins is after the kids are asleep. “You just make time for things that you want to do and that you’re compelled to do,” she says. Another issue is cost. Moreland shells out an average of $300 a year for supplies. She knows she could probably make it back if she sold the pumpkins, but she doesn’t want to. She prefers to focus solely on raising awareness of the need for regular mammograms. She’s also hoping this year’s pumpkin crop will be better than the last, when too much rain caused what she calls “the great pumpkin shortage,” making them hard to find and very expensive. The outlook for her parties was looking dismal until Brandie Forsyth, a teacher from Paris, Mo., and her daughter, Saylor, suddenly donated an entire trailer full of pumpkins.