Prostate cancer is the most common cancer found in men across the UK. It’s estimated that more than 140 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer every day – that’s 52,000 every year.
Dealing with prostate cancer can be incredibly challenging for men, from both a physical and emotional perspective. A lot of men find that being diagnosed and treated for prostate cancer can affect their self confidence, dignity and sense of manhood.
Fortunately, there are a number of charities across the UK that offer valuable support to men suffering from prostate cancer.
One of these charities is Prost8.
Introducing Prost8
Prost8 was set up in 2019 by Paul Sayer, who is himself a prostate cancer survivor.
The charity has three main aims:
- encouraging men to address the symptoms of prostate cancer earlier,
- improving access to more accurate screening,
- providing wider access to less invasive treatment options
One of the major focuses of the charity at the minute is to campaign for minimally invasive treatments that help men avoid life changing side effects like erectile dysfunction and incontinence.
The name for the new campaign is MAD, and it is driven by a mission for wider access to less invasive treatments to protect patients Manhood And Dignity.
introducing icon
Founded by Helen Georgio and Rachael Lewis, ICON events bring exciting names from the world of fashion, entertainment and music together to help raise valuable funds and awareness for nominated charities.
ICON events have fast become a staple of London Fashion Week ever since their debut in 2021.
On 17th February, ICON hosted a celebrity gala and awards ceremony at the De Vere Grand Hotel in London. The nominated charity for the event was Prost8.
The awards ceremony was designed to celebrate iconic people who have contributed to music, fashion, entertainment and a charity auction was planned to help raise funds for Prost8.
But the team at ICON also wanted to raise awareness for their chosen charity. To help deliver a really eye-catching and memorable message for Prost8, the team at ICON knew they had to do something a little creative and controversial.
They came up with the amazing idea of having the MAD logo emblazoned on a pair of pants that would be worn by male dancers at the event. It was an idea that was sure to turn heads and get conversations going.
The only issue they had was having the briefs designed and printed. That’s where we came in.
Donating 50 pairs of MAD pants for the charity gala
ICON got in touch with the Everything Community team to see if we were able to support with a donation of branded MAD pants for their event.
We were immediately excited when we heard the plans and the charity we’d be helping to support.
We agreed to the donation straight away, and one of our sales reps, Jake Lyndsey managed the whole process with ICON, from design to production.
Once the merchandise was signed off by ICON, 50 pairs of bright blue pants with a distinctive MAD logo were delivered for the celebrity gala event.
The event was a huge success
On the evening of the event, seats quickly filled up with some recognizable celebrity faces including Anita Dobson, Sir Brian May, Matt Goss, Ben Odoefu, Nick Knowles, Ellie Goldstein, Sam Fox and Sophie Hermann.
There were some very worthy ICON winners on the evening, with notable awards going to:
- Matt Goss
- Anita Dobson
- Terry Stone
- Paul Gregg
- Adam Deacon
- Jo Wood
- Cheddar Gorgeous
The charity auction was also a huge hit, with lots like a Formula One party experience in Abu Dhabi and the opportunity to star in Terry Stone and Richard Turner’s next film all helping to raise valuable funds for Prost8.
But perhaps the most raucous moment of the night was when six male dancers stepped on stage in nothing more than our blue “MAD” pants! It’s fair to say the reaction from the crowd is exactly what ICON was looking for when they came up with the idea!
Perhaps the only slight downside to the event is that we later learned that the branded MAD pants has been stolen from backstage at the gala.
We wouldn’t blame anyone for having a wry smile at the case of the stolen underpants – but it really does seem a shame that there are people that are willing to steal from a charity event.
But the good news is that the pants didn’t disappear before the dancers were able to deliver their memorable performance and raise awareness for Prost8 and their MAD campaign.
Overall it was an amazing event, and it was our privilege to have played a small part helping raise awareness of Prost8.
does your charity need support
Everything Community manages the social responsibility and community support initiatives of Everything Global.
If you’re a registered charity and want to talk about how we can potentially work together, we’d love to hear from you at hello@everythingcommunity.org
We’re keen on helping all charities and community causes where we can, but we prioritise requests from smaller charities and those that are local to the Leicester area.
