A group raising money for breast cancer awareness hopes to at least double the contribution made last year.

“We want to be able to give more,” Andrea Gatzman said. “We want to be able to give as much as we can this year.”

Gatzman, her son, Muskogee High School football player Kyle Gatzman, and the Rougher Booster Club donated $1,500 to Women Who Care in 2011.

Women Who Care is an organization that provides education and resources for breast cancer prevention in the Muskogee area.

The money was raised by a “Roughers For The Cure” T-shirt the booster club sold. With a year’s experience, Gatzman said they think they improve on last year.

“We’ll have them for sale at all the home games,” Gatzman said. “We’ll have the shirts in early this week, and we’ll have out own table set up at the home games.”

Gatzman said they’re taking pre-orders for the shirts.

Pre-orders can be made by emailing the size and desired amount of shirts to Roughers4thecure@hotmail.com.

Shirts are $15 for sizes small-extra large, and $18 for XXL and larger.

Gatzman, who is a breast cancer survivor, said Kyle came up with the idea last year. The idea came together quickly,

“Kyle was only 7 years old when I was going through it, so when I got better, we never really talked about it,” Gatzman said. “He actually thought they had found a cure for breast cancer, since I had gotten better. When he realized there were still people out there suffering, he said he wanted to help make a difference.

“It’s not a ton of money we can give, but we can give them all we can.”

Wren Stratton, co-founder of Women who Care, said the donations are much needed.

“How do you begin to say how much you appreciate it?” Stratton said. “You know, what we do is confidential, so people don’t get to see the women, and it can be kind of like ‘out of sight, out of mind.’

“This will give these women a chance to get a mammogram. It’s so needed, and we’re so thankful.”

Stratton said denominations of all sizes help considerably.

“The idea that $1,500 or whatever it may be is a small donation is not true,” Stratton said. “You can’t look at anything as being too small.”

Reach Dylan Goforth at (918) 684-2903 or dgoforth@muskogeephoenix.com.

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Pre-orders for the Roughers For the Cure shirts are being accepted  this weekend, and Andrea Gatzman said she expects the shirts to arrive early this week.

To pre-order a shirt, email the size and desired amount of shirts to Roughers4thecure@hotmail.com.