The vital impact your Blue September donations will have on fighting cancer in Ireland

Battling men’s cancers is a 12-month-a-year job, and these are the charities that lead the fight. They need your money.

While Blue September is chiefly about making Irish men wise up to men’s cancers, there is a fund raising element to the initiative too. This is vitally important as it generates much-needed funds for three key charities who are behind Blue September in Ireland. One is The Mater Foundation. Based in the Dublin hospital of the same name, the Mater Foundation raises funds for the northside facility and they hope to use Blue September funds to help them buy a 3-Tesla MRI Scanner. This machine allows for much earlier, and much more accurate, detection of testicular and prostate cancer in men. That means it will save lives, and you can’t put a price on that. The second group involved is Cancer Care West. Set up to help those diagnosed with cancer in the west of Ireland, they provide support to the patients and families of those affected who live in Clare, Donegal, Galway, Leitrim, Limerick, Mayo, North Tipperary , Roscommon and Sligo. They run a cancer support unit and a residential complex at Galway University Hospital and they offer services such as advice, information, counselling, complementary therapies and a variety of courses and classes. The money raised by Blue September should allow Cancer Care West to continue to fund the residential lodge at GUH and provide counseling for men affected by a cancer diagnosis. The third charity involved is Mercy Hospital Foundation, which works with cancer patients in the Munster area. Since 2008 they have run a Rapid Access Clinic for men diagnosed with prostate cancer. This has reduced the wait time for treatment to just five weeks. They now have a similar Clinic for testicular cancer patients and they run a large information programme, visiting schools and clubs across the region, encouraging men to check themselves out. The money raised by Blue September should allow them to continue this great work, and reach even more people with their information campaign. Ultimately that will mean more lives saved. So, what are you waiting for? Click here to visit the page where you can learn what you have to do to raise funds yourself and just click here to skip straight to the donate page. It'll be the best thing you do all day.