South Lincoln Hospital District’s marketing coordinator, Cathy Sundberg, says its recent golf tournament met the fundraising goal set of $20,000 in an effort to expand women’s health services.

Sundberg says it raised four times the amount it has in previous tournaments.

“It’s so fantastic to see the community come together and support us,” Sundberg said.

She says the fundraiser brought in over $23,000 and will go towards its capital campaign to bring in a mobile mammography unit and what is called a “Breast Boutique” to the area. The hospital will work with WBCI (Wyoming Breast Cancer Initiative) and Kelly Sugihara from the Wyoming Cancer Resources center to bring the shop locally.

“Any patients needing prosthetics or specialty bras,” Sundberg said describing the store. “As they are going through cancer or had a mastectomy…we’re hoping to bring something closer.”

There are currently three in the state in Sheridan, Laramie, and Casper. So the hospital is hoping to build the shop closer for those patients and also include it as a coffee shop that will be open to the public.

“100% of those funds (from coffee shop) will go to our ‘Breast Boutique'”, Sundberg said.

She says they are in the early stages of rolling that out and the public can hopefully expect to see it in the next 12 to 18 months.

Sundberg says the mobile mammography unit is probably at least a couple of years away however. She says this type of program has a lot of options to consider. The unit will be installed in either a box truck or a semi to bring to rural communities.

“To reach those women that may not have the transportation to come to town,” Sundberg said. “Or may not have the time to spend on the road to come back and forth.”

She says this is an attempt to help more women get screenings as Wyoming ranks second-to-last in the United States in mammography screenings.

She also says the hospital will continue to hold fundraising activities to go towards these efforts.