On Wednesday, April 16, the Latino/Hispanic student organization Presente en la Lucha de Mama, or PELDEM, which translates to supporting mothers and their families fighting breast cancer, hosted their third annual Pink Fashion Show.

The Pink Fashion Show is a tradition in honor of PELDEM’s appreciation for the two families they help with financial assistance, nutrition, housekeeping and childcare services. When Peldem is not able to provide a service, they reach out to nonprofits. The pink fashion show is Peldem’s largest event of the year. This year, Peldem aimed to double their size from the previous years’ fashion shows.

Peldem was founded three years ago by Norma Rodriguez Arguelles ‘23, who lost her mother to breast cancer when she was 14-years-old. She understood the struggle that families have to overcome when it comes to easy accessibility to resources, and wanted to create an organization that helps others with something that she experienced firsthand. 

PELDEM finds the families they support through the Bryan-College Station community. They currently help two families, and are always looking for more.

Maria De Los Angeles is PELDEM’s first sponsored mother. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2023 and has five children.

“A year ago, I was full of fear but with lots of hope and faith,” De Los Angeles said in Spanish. “ … I’m so grateful for the support [PELDEM] gives me and my girls.”

The second sponsored mother is Lilian Ponce. Her speech thanked PELDEM for helping her and her 9-year-old daughter. Ponce used her strong faith in God to help her fight cancer, which the doctors had originally told her was incurable.

“My strength was my daughter when I told her about my sickness,” Ponce said in Spanish. “She told me, ‘You’re not alone, God is with you and he won’t take you because he knows I need you.’ … I don’t know what you’re going through, but I just wanted you to know that if God did it with me, he can also do it with you. You just have to have faith.”

Supporting a family is a lot of work for the organization. PELDEM as a whole, especially its officers, has grown close to the mothers and the families they support due to how much time they spend talking to them.

“I’m in constant communication with them,” president of PELDEM and public health senior Gabriela Medina said. “ … They’ve become like my family. I’m going into their home and feel like I’m back at home so it’s really nice to have that relationship.”

The models walked down the runway, showing off their pink outfits. Anyone was welcome to sign up to model. The only requirement was that they wear something pink and to sport a have a  smile. 

Each model wrote a speech that was read aloud as they walked. The speeches were typically about their dresses or about someone special in their lives who was affected by breast cancer.

“It was a very, very pretty event,” model for the show and nursing sophomore Jumana Degani said. “ … It was really fun and I’m really glad that I did it.”

There were a variety of different tables set up at the event. One table was dedicated to food, another had bras set up, and a different one had PELDEM’s origin displayed on a poster. Additionally, there was a photo pink backdrop which was perfect for group and individual photos.

“It looks cute,” Sam Houston State University sophomore Karla Calderon said. “Everybody is wearing pink.”

In addition to the fashion show, the Aggieland Mariachi also made an appearance. They played a few songs in between both rounds of the fashion show as the second group got ready to walk down the runway.

“It was a lot of fun,” Aggieland Mariachi guitar player and agricultural development sophomore Benjamin Juarez said. “ … It’s something important to be a part of, and we enjoy coming in and bringing new music.”

Spreading the word on an event of this size is something that takes months of planning. Handing out and putting up flyers around campus and bannering are a few things that PELDEM did to get people excited about the Pink Fashion Show.

“It took a lot of outreach, going to committees, going to other organizations,” manufacturing engineering sophomore and marketing director for PELDEM Gaby Maldonado said.

The people in PELDEM have grown close throughout the years. The organization has felt like a community to many students, including university studies society ethics and law sophomore Montserrat Rangel, who joined PELDEM in fall 2024.

“It has a really nice family feeling inside the organization, so that’s why I stay and continue being in it,” Rangel said.

Having the mothers and their families at the event tied the event together.

“It’s a lot of work but it definitely pays off so much whenever we’re actually able to have our two families that we’re supporting here come speak and have their daughters walk,” PELDEM’s director of operations and biomedical sciences senior Johnathan Flores said. “ … It is such a heartwarming moment to see that they’re here and they’re supporting us and we’re supporting them.”