Colon Cancer Awareness Saves Unlimited Adult Lives Day (CASUAL) 2022- Insights

C.A.S.U.A.L. (Colon Cancer Awareness Saves Unlimited Adult Lives) Day is an annual educational awareness campaign focused on the importance of early detection and screening for colon cancer. March is Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month and each year, C.A.S.U.A.L. Day is celebrated on the last Thursday of March. Specially designed items are sold throughout northeast PA and are worn on C.A.S.U.A.L. Day. to raise awareness and encourage the community to have a casual conversation about screening and early detection.

This campaign started as brother and sister co-founders, Michael Moran and Maura Staback’s mother, Helen Phillips was diagnosed with later stage colon cancer. She had never been screened and six months after her diagnosis, cancer took her life.  Her family came to the Cancer Institute with the idea of a dress down event, in her memory.  CASUAL Day was created to provide information about screening, as they believe it might have saved their mother’s life.

This year we sold specially designed Kelly Green t-shirts (the color changes every year!), face masks and new this year, socks. We had 104 teams from big and small organizations register, we had 54 sponsor names and logos listed on the back of the t-shirt. We had thousands of individuals participate. Thank you to our sponsors, teams, retail stores and all of NE Pennsylvania for supporting C.A.S.U.A.L. Day.

In 2002, information from our annual surveillance report, indicated that colon cancer incidence was 30% higher in our area. Now, 20 years later, colon cancer rates have declined by 17%. We have made progress with education and screening.

Every C.A.S.U.A.L. Day purchase, conversation with a friend and screening completed makes a difference. The education and outreach add up to thousands of messages about the importance of colon cancer screening and early detection.

Here are a few teams in their 2022 Kelly Green C.A.S.U.A.L. Day shirts: