October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, and it’s one of the busier months for local charities’ fall fundraisers. One however, has stood the test of time not as an evening gala, but as a laid-back breakfast party.
For 24 years, Boobapalooza has served as fun and lively reminder to get your exam, and to reach out to friends to make sure they’ve gotten theirs. It’s also an opportunity to kickstart your weekend with a fantastic breakfast that benefits Breast Cancer Foundation of the Ozarks, the premiere local organization that helps breast cancer patients meet financial needs as they undergo treatment.
More about BCFO later; let’s get to the big event.
The very first Boobapalooza happened back in 1999 at Coyote’s Adobe Café on South Glenstone. Organizers from a local radio station wanted to craft a fun event for breast cancer awareness, so they named it based on the wildly successful music festival, Lollapalooza. The name alone drew people in, and to this day some of us have become so accustomed to the term Boobapalooza we have to Google search to remember the name of the original festival.
Radio personalities Kevin Howard and Chris Louzader from 98.7 The Dove broadcast live throughout the morning, and diners are free to drop in any time between 6 and 10am to ante up $10 and enjoy breakfast with friends at the well-established Springfield eatery. Howard has been front and center at Boobapalooza since day one, when other media outlets deemed its name far too risqué to use on air. He and former longtime co-host Liz Delaney made the event a household name here in the Ozarks and helped build momentum as a station event meant to raise awareness during the month of October. BCFO aligned with Boobapalooza soon thereafter and over the decades it has become an autumn tradition filled with music, laughs, touching stories of BCFO’s assistance to patients – and of course, fab food!
Coyote’s Adobe Café prides itself on Tex-Mex fare and chicken wings so the buffet typically features burritos, chips and salsa and other spicy items along with more traditional breakfast fare like pancakes and bacon. Some diners sit and chat, others grab and go. Either way it’s fun, delicious, and a great way to help support the efforts of BCFO. Restaurant owner Dave Bauer donates every cent of the proceeds to BCFO, and his staff is happy to show up early to make the annual event run smoothly.
Great food isn’t the only draw here. The annual Boobapalooza T-shirt is for sale, plus BCFO typically has some fancy raffle items up for grabs that are worth getting up early for. It’s the survivor stories, however, that encourage supporters to keep coming back. Diners and radio listeners get the privilege of hearing from breast cancer patients, family members, and other individuals who’ve been on the receiving end of BCFO’s compassionate generosity.
The organization was established in 1999 by Mary Beth O’Reilly – a breast cancer survivor herself — as an effort to help local families impacted by breast cancer. It offers non-medical financial assistance, a children’s fund, emotional support through mentoring, free screening mammograms and other diagnostics and lymphedema garments to those who qualify. Its goal is to ease the financial worries of families facing breast cancer.
If you, or someone you know is diagnosed with breast cancer and you’d like more information visit HERE.
If you’re up for a lively breakfast celebration, join Boobapalooza this Friday, October 20th from 6am – 10am at Coyote’s Adobe Café at 1742 S. Glenstone. Get all the details HERE.
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