On Saturday, Powerful United Ladies Striving to Elevate (PULSE) hosted their 13th annual Breast Cancer Festival.

The festival capped off a week dedicated to breast cancer awareness, which included events like Chalk the Spine on Tuesday and a Breast Cancer Walk on Friday. Organized by PULSE, an organization dedicated to empowering women of color, the events were planned for October, which is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, to raise awareness and funding to support those diagnosed with breast cancer. This year, PULSE raised money for Bold and Breastless, a nonprofit organization that aims to educate people about the importance of early detection and provide emotional support for those diagnosed, as well as offering financial support to those in treatment. The organization also provides necessary items to both patients and caregivers.

Miah Barrow, PULSE’s community service events coordinator and a senior majoring in environmental studies, expanded on the organization’s mission.

“PULSE is a woman-centric multicultural organization that aims to educate, elevate and empower the women on campus,” Barrow said. “We focus on women of color, but we’re inclusive to all self-identifying women. We just basically want to create a safe space for women to just come and talk about different issues that you can’t really talk about anywhere else on [Binghamton University’s] campus because there’s not a lot of women-centered organizations or even women of colored-centered [organizations].”

Gathering in the Mandela Room at noon, several organizations — including the Feminist Collective, the Healthy Campus Initiative, the Indian International Student Union and the Caribbean Student Association — tabled. After, a presentation educated attendees about the history of the event and relevant information about breast cancer.

Barrow expanded on the event’s planning.

“I’ve been working on it since this summer, so since May [or] June, and … what I usually do is I have a document with all my ideas,” Barrow said. “I made an outline of the month. Every week, we had a breast cancer-related general body meeting. And then this week, we tabled on the Spine for the Chalk the Spine event and raise awareness [for] breast cancer.”

During Tuesday’s event, PULSE members sold cookies and provided chalk for students to write messages of hope and encouragement. Another event was the 13th-annual Breast Cancer Walk, during which participants united to create signs and honor both survivors and those who have lost their lives to breast cancer.

Ellie Gross, a senior majoring in psychology who was tabling for BU’s Healthy Campus Initiative, expressed her support for the festival.

“They definitely did an amazing job of putting the entire thing together,” Gross said. “It looks beautiful. I think it’s been going really well. What we’re doing is looking at what you should know about breast care and breast examinations, and how to do self-examinations. It’s really important for both women and men to understand how to go through that process, [what] it looks like and how easy it is to do even on a daily or monthly basis.”