By NEAL WAGNER / City Editor

Every hallway, office and classroom in Valley Elementary was filled with pink Oct. 8, as the school’s employees and students remembered those lost to breast cancer and honored those who have survived the disease.

During the daylong pink out event, nearly everyone at the school wore a pink shirt, ribbon or other article of clothing in honor of breast cancer awareness month.

“There were a ton of kids wearing pink that day. Even our boys wore pink,” said Valley Elementary physical education teacher Ginger Aaron. “We really had a lot of participation from everyone in the school.”

School administrators suspended the dress code for each teacher who donated at least $5 to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure campaign, which brought in nearly $400 for the organization.

“We have a pretty strict dress code here, but our principal allowed us to wear blue jeans with our pink out attire if we donated $5 to Susan G. Komen,” Aaron said. “We were able to raise close to $400 through that.”

The day after the pink out, the school also fielded a team and raised money at the Race for the Cure in Linn Park in Birmingham.

During the pink out, some of the school’s faculty members learned how widespread the disease’s effects are, Aaron said.

“During P.E. that day, we thanked all the students for wearing pink,” Aaron said. “There were a number of kids who spoke up and told us that their mother, grandmother or aunt had been affected by breast cancer.

“We didn’t even realize that some of these kids’ family members had been through that,” Aaron added. “We thought it was neat, not that so many people have this disease, but because it allowed us to see that breast cancer truly affects everybody.”