Light a Blue Bulb for Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, September 2011.

This year, let’s take prostate cancer awareness building into our own hands. Light a Blue Bulb every night (or, for a few nights) during September.

Too often, we look to nonprofits, government agencies and corporations to lead our advocacy efforts…and, sometimes, we are deeply disappointed. This year, our national prostate cancer nonprofit, Malecare, asks us to take personal responsibility and build advocacy from the grass roots, up. So, please do the simple task of getting a blue bulb and lighting it where your neighbors might see it. Get ready for your neighbors to ask you, “why the blue bulb?” Proudly express your desire that all men and women become more aware about prostate cancer.

Get a blue bulb at your local hardware store or online at HomeDepot.com or amazon.com or dig one out from your party box. Set it in your porch light or a lamp by a window. And, simply, light it for a few hours, or all night.

Please share your thoughts with us about this project at malecare.org/blue Did you use Prostate Cancer Awareness Month to remember someone whom you have lost? We would be honored to publish a paragraph about the person you cared about, and, you can even upload a photo. Perhaps a photo of the person you wish were still here, or of you, by your blue light bulb.

If in the moment that you screw in a blue light bulb, you think to yourself, “I ought to make a doctor’s appointment,” then Prostate Cancer Awareness Month has done its job. We need to say to ourselves, “we are worth taking care of, that our lives are worthy of health and happiness, that I will commit to asking my doctor what tests I need to stay alive.”

Thanks for honoring us, all, by supporting Prostate Cancer Awareness Month.