Three women touched by cancer are hoping to raise funds to help the Bermuda Cancer and Health Centre at a cocktail party tonight.

Renee Carter, Nicole Burrows and Tracy Marshall formed the organisation Melange – its efforts will be devoted to the memory of their loved ones and their own struggles with the disease.

Ms Burrows' mother died within a year of a biopsy on her colon in 1987.

Later her aunt was diagnosed with breast cancer. As a result, both she and her sister regularly get screened.

Because of an abnormal mammogram five months ago, Ms Marshall, 44, will next month see a specialist from Massachusetts' Lahey Clinic, who is to travel here.

Both her mother and her grandmother were diagnosed with the disease as was her great uncle – one of only a few men on the Island to develop breast cancer.

Ms Carter, 48, is a five-year survivor of breast cancer.

The fund-raiser is particularly acute for her as her 75-year-old mother is currently struggling with the disease.

"The month after I was diagnosed she just took the initiative (and got tested)," she said. "She had the same thing in the right side and she had a mastectomy. Now in stage four. At 75 years old, she will be on chemotherapy for the rest of her life.

"I don't regard myself as a victim I regard myself as a survivor. For those who say they are past it they are not past it. You live with it for the rest of your life.

"When I was sick there was a 12-year-old with breast cancer. There is no way to know when and how it's going to attack. You remove the right breast but if it comes back you are in the same boat. There's no guarantee it's not going to come back. It can slip through the lymph nodes."

The combined incidences are why the three women are encouraging both men and women to turnout for the cocktail reception tonight, the last Saturday before Breast Cancer Awareness Month draws to a close.

Ms Carter will tell her story and Terricca Glasford from the Mammography Department at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital KEMH and Maureen Noon of Bermuda Cancer and Health, will also speak.

Tonight's event is from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. in Gosling's Wine Cellar on Dundonald Street. The event is free, although it is hoped those in attendance will make donations of $25 or more towards the Bermuda Cancer and Health Centre. For more information telephone Ms Carter on 292-2535 or 737-5363.