Monday, March 14, 2005 | 8:09 a.m.
Along with millions of Americans, Steve Ireland wears a yellow Livestrong bracelet. But it's not to be trendy.
Steve Ireland's wife, Sylvia, is a two-time cancer survivor, and the bracelet is a way to commemorate her victory over the disease.
"I never take it off," Steve Ireland said proudly.
Las Vegas entertainer Clint Holmes is also fond of his royal-blue bracelet, which is inscribed with the words, colon rectal cancer: preventable, treatable, beatable.
The bracelet was a gift from the doctor who performed colon cancer surgery on him in late December. Holmes said he hopes the bracelet will attract attention and questions about its significance.
"That's the reason I wear it," he said. "Everyone knows the yellow one. It gives me a chance to explain it without being a jerk."
Scott Burton, a reporter with KTNV Channel 13 (ABC), wears his bracelet in tribute. Burton was a childhood friend of Pat Tillman, the former Arizona Cardinal who left the NFL to join the Army Rangers and was killed in combat in April while stationed in Afghanistan.
When Burton found out about Tillman's bracelet, in Cardinals' red with the player's No. 40 embossed in the silicone, he knew he had to have one. So he bought one off eBay for $12 (he later learned Tillman's Web site offered them for free).
"It was one of those things I wanted to have," he said. "It didn't matter to me how much I had to pay."
Burton wears the bracelet every day, even when on camera.
"He was a great guy. He gave up a million dollars to serve a higher cause," Burton said. Wearing the bracelet "is one way to promote Pat and what he was about."
Wrist rage
While it might seem the wrist bracelets are a recent phenomenon, they've actually been around for several years, as a fashion accessory manufactured by Nike and worn by NBA players.
The bracelets were popular enough that the shoemaker used them as means to promote cancer awareness through the Lance Armstrong Foundation in May.
Initially, only a million or so bracelets were produced. When those quickly sold out, Nike made more.
Nearly a year later, more than 40 million Livestrong bracelets have been sold.
At $1 apiece, that's $40 million raised for the Lance Armstrong Foundation to fund cancer research and raise awareness for the disease.
It's no surprise other "themed" bracelets followed, including blue and white for tsunami relief, teal for ovarian cancer, pink, pink and white, and red and white for breast cancer, and camouflage to "Support Our Troops."
There are also the statement-style bracelets: Aqua blue and yellow for faith, silver for "Jesus Loves Me," and even a blue bracelet for Chicago Cubs fans with the word "believe" embossed in the surface.
Even more confusing, though, is that some same-colored bracelets have different meanings.
The same yellow wrist band for Livestrong, for example, is also the same-colored band used by country trio SheDaisy's Come Home Soon bracelets for the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Kassidy Osborn of SheDaisy said matching colors was a coincidence, because the band chose the yellow to match the Come Home Soon ribbons.
"We didn't realize it was the color for the Lance Armstrong bracelet," she said during a recent phone interview.
Not that the similarity has hurt sales. SheDaisy has raised $60,000 for the Red Cross through sales of the Come Home Soon bracelets, sold for $4 at the band's Web site, www.shedaisy.com.
Because of the bracelet's popularity, Osborn said the group will continue to sell the bracelets through May.
"The whole experience has been pretty amazing," she said. "We went into the project with under 500 bracelets and said we'll see how this goes. We sold 500 in the first week.
"We're better people for it. It's opened our eyes in many ways."
Laura Adams, a Fairway, Kan., housewife, found similar success with her blue "hope" bracelet.
A longtime Democrat, Adams created the bracelet to "spread hope" to other like-minded voters after the November election.
"It was something I felt very moved to do," she said in a recent phone interview from her home. "I was feeling down after the election. I talked to other people who were feeling hopeless. I thought, we can't just spend our time feeling there's no hope. It's not healthy to be negative."
Adams, who sells the blue wristbands on her Web site, www.hopebracelets.com, for $3 a piece, has sold 17,000.
And not just to Democrats.
"Some Republicans are wearing my bracelets," she said. "They are moderates. They just hope things become a little more sane."
In demand
Finding your bracelet can be difficult.
In most instances, cause-related bracelets, such as the Livestrong, have to be purchased directly through the organization. And because of limited availability and increasing popularity, many groups are struggling to keep up with the demand.
Jackie Brown, executive director of Susan G. Komen Cancer Foundation, said the pink breast-cancer awareness bracelets consistently remain on back-order.
Consequently, her office struggles to keep the bracelets on hand.
"One of our board members with Sierra Health took 2,000 of them and sold them all," Brown said. "It's amazing how popular they are.
"Every time I wear mine, I end up having to give it away."
The bracelets cost $5 each, with 75 percent of the money going to local women with breast cancer who have little or no insurance, while the remaining 25 percent goes to fund cancer research.
Brown said the pink bracelets are popular among age groups from teens to senior citizens.
"We get so many phone calls," Brown said. "Because of the Lance Armstrong band, everyone is wanting a pink band. We had to find a way to get them."
The scarcity of the bracelets has led to a purely capitalistic enterprise on the Internet, with Web sites hawking the bracelets two to three times more than the original price.
Chris Angel, owner of CSA Marketing, which is based in the Los Angeles area, sells numerous bands on his site -- www.yellowrubber.net -- usually for a few bucks more than the organizations.
He defends his opportunistic business venture as a simple case of supply and demand, and is quick to point out he donates a portion of his profits to the charities, in addition to the initial donation when he purchased the bands.
Angel also guarantees that all of his bracelets are originals and not the cheap knockoffs found on other Web sites or on eBay.
With bracelet sales continually high, Angel said he sees no decline in the popularity of the wrist bands -- especially as latecomers join the trend.
"People see them all around -- just watch a basketball game," he said. "More people nowadays buy (bracelets) because of the fashion trend."
Not surprisingly, consumers have also tapped into the popularity of the wrist bracelets, which can be bought wholesale in either molded (silicon) or rubber-band form.
While the molded bracelet is more expensive than the rubber-band style, it's also considerably stronger. The bands are available in a rainbow of colors and can be custom designed with simple messages, names or even advertisements.
"I think it's a novel way to advertise," said Ireland, an advertising specialties distributor, who purchases the bands for local clients. "If it's novel, it will be effective."
Still, he acknowledges, the advertising bracelets may push the trend to the point of oversaturation, with the bands losing any significance.
"They're going to make too many," Ireland said. "It's going to dilute the whole system."
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