Special to
L’Observateur

LAPLACE — The employees, physicians and volunteers at River Parishes Hospital recently joined together to enter the Pink Glove Dance Competition.

Nearly 100 staff members at River Parishes Hospital are starring in their own Pink Glove Dance video to help spread the word about breast cancer awareness and prevention.

The video was submitted to a national competition to determine the best Pink Glove Dance video of 2014. The annual competition is sponsored by Medline Industries, manufacturer of the gloves and producer of the original Pink Glove Dance video. 

As part of the Pink Glove Dance 2014 competition, the hospital’s video will be posted on pinkglovedance.com on Sept. 9 along other participants to be viewed by the public.

Viewers can vote on their favorite video through a valid email account. Voters will need to validate their email address the first time they vote, then can continue to vote as often as once a day through Sept. 23.

The top two hospital videos receiving the most votes will win a donation to the breast cancer charity of their choice.

The first place winner will receive a $15,000 donation, and the second place winner will receive a $10,000 donation.

If River Parishes Hospital’s video is one of the top two videos, hospital officials said they plan to award their donation to the American Cancer Society.

“Our employees are really excited be a part of the Pink Glove Dance,” said Tammy Waltz, community relations coordinator. “It is not only a lot of fun to participate, but the awareness and discussion about breast cancer we’re going to create from the video is the real satisfaction we’re hoping to take away from this experience.”

The song used in River Parishes Hospital’s video is “Happy” by Pharrell Williams.

“This song is so much fun and everyone is familiar with it, so we felt that people would dance along with us as they watch the video,” Waltz said. “We are happy that breast cancer statistics have been improving over the past few years due to an increase in mammogram screenings, but we will keep dancing until there is a cure for this disease because every pink ribbon makes a difference.”