Standing in the events courtyard at the top of Blomgren Ranch on a hot March evening last week, the Met Gala Santa Clarita Valley’s annual fundraiser guests were Victorian Steampunk personified – absurd, regally elegant, or both.
Met Gala SCV has hosted four fundraisers over the past five years in high style, and that’s by design: This year’s theme, according to MetGala SCV’s website, was a “celebration of resilience and style where Bridgerton-era elegance meets the bold, vibrant spirit of metastatic breast cancer thrivers.”
This year’s fundraiser was special for a few reasons, particularly its proceed recipients, but the aim is always the same: to funnel donations specifically toward metastatic breast cancer research, or stage four breast cancer, where the cancer has spread to vital organs.
MetGala SCV founder Eva Miranda Crawford, greeting guests as they were driven up to Saturday’s event from the gravel parking lot below, wore a pink gown and gleaming head piece. She said one thing that makes this year’s event special was the nonprofit that’d be handling the event proceeds, CancerCulture, and team that’d be receiving them, UCLA Health.
“It’s staying very local,” Miranda Crawford said.
Miranda Crawford was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer at age 41 after getting her first mammogram.
Santa Clarita City Councilman Bill Miranda, Miranda Crawford’s father and MetGala SCV co-chair, said that, because that stage of breast cancer has been historically overlooked for research and treatment funding, MetGala SCV’s aims are particularly important.
“There are a lot of fundraisers for cancers, but this is one of the only ones that goes directly to research (for metastatic breast cancer),” Miranda said. “We’re so happy we’re at Blomgren Ranch on a day as beautiful as this one.”
Despite chronic underfunding, the difference over the past few decades in metastatic breast cancer treatment options and side effects for patients has made radical leaps, allowing certain patients to live with the disease for several years, advocates say.
Colleen Shaffer, founder of the Circle of Hope Cancer Support Center, said she’s been living with metastatic breast cancer for decades past her terminal diagnosis.
“In 2001, I was told I had six months to live,” Shaffer said. “There have been so much advances in the three decades (since) I’d started … there’s a lot of things that have developed over the years.”
The research being supported through Met Gala SCV will benefit not only the effectiveness of metastatic breast cancer treatment, but also the side effects of the treatment for patients, she said.
Those funds are significant for enhancing both quality and quantity of life for patients at stage four. For Shaffer, the decades she’s lived since being diagnosed – up until that warm evening at Blomgren, dressed in a flower-laden Victorian hat and peach slip dress – are a testament to what’s possible after diagnosis.
“I’m hoping to show that it’s not a death sentence,” Shaffer said.