Clearing Ice, Crushing Cancer: Why Champion Joined Pink Ribbon Good
The story behind our pink ice melt, our pink semi, and the Dayton nonprofit that makes sure no one goes through cancer alone.
On a Saturday night in September, the Champion Mulch & Landscape Supply table was full. Matt Brun, Champion's owner, sat with his wife, Kasie, and his mom and stepdad, Pam and Barry Hall. Alex, Champion's General Manager, and Michelle Bunn were there, along with Brittany McKittrick, Champion's Office Manager. The theme was “Down with Texas,” and the dress code was jeans and jerseys. With Ohio State facing Texas that night, the hosts built the gala around the game rather than ask a room full of Buckeye fans to miss it. Genius Idea! O-H!
Outside, pink trucks lined the lane. Concrete mixers, dump trucks, box trucks, pickups. Every one of them wrapped in pink.
The event was Ignite the Fight, the annual gala for Pink Ribbon Good (PRG), a nonprofit founded in Dayton that now helps people with breast and gynecological cancer in communities across the country. Champion signed on as a partner earlier this year. That night, most of our group heard the whole story for the first time from the woman who started it.
What follows is Heather Salazar’s story, in her own words. After that, we'll explain why Champion chose PRG, why our Contractor's Choice Ice Melt now comes in a pink bag, and why one of our semis got a lot harder to miss.
If you know us through our mulch yard signs, don't worry. Our partnership with Ronald McDonald House Southwest Ohio is still going strong on the retail mulch side. PRG is our winter and wholesale partner. We'll explain how the two fit together further down.
In This Article (click to open)
Ignite the Fight, A Night Like No Other
Alex’s wife, Michelle, spent the evening seated next to a man who lost his wife to cancer this past year. A few years earlier, he and his wife had been featured speakers at Ignite. Now, he was back in that room, sitting with the people who had helped carry his family through it. Earlier that night, over 140 precious names were read aloud. They were the names of PRG clients who had lost their battle with cancer the previous year. His wife’s name was among them. Hearing his story made the gravity of the night very real. PRG was doing real work, and the community they built was far more than meals, rides, and a cleaning kit. It was a community of support when people needed it most.
Later in the night, during the pledge portion of the program, the room raised more than $1 million in about ten minutes. Hands kept going up. Some belonged to people cancer had touched directly. Others simply believed in the work. Watching it happen and hearing the stories of the people PRG serves told us more about PRG than any brochure ever could.
Heather’s Answer to Cancer
My life changed forever after meeting Alexis, a 23-year-old single mother who was raised in the foster care system and nearing the end of her battle with Stage 4 breast cancer. Alexis was looking for someone to raise her 9-month-old baby girl.
After hearing about Alexis, I couldn’t sleep. Thinking about someone battling cancer and raising a baby with zero support was unimaginable for someone with a family like mine. I begged my husband to meet her, just to help with groceries. After all, we already had three kids of our own, and the youngest wasn’t even two yet.
My husband and I met Alexis in a Meijer parking lot in Englewood. I was so excited to hug her as she stepped off the bus. Instead, she walked right by me and up to Steve and said, “I’m dying, and I want my baby girl to have a better life than I did.”
At that, Steve’s heart melted into a puddle, and we cared for Alexis through her final months and added baby Lexi to our family, giving us four kids under 8.
Fast forward a year and a half, and my husband and I went on a vacation to celebrate our 12th wedding anniversary. On that trip, I did my first-ever self-breast exam. I found a lump, but I wasn’t worried. I was only 31.
Four days later, I was diagnosed with the same aggressive breast cancer that took Lexi’s first mom. If it hadn’t been for Alexis, I wouldn’t have done that self-breast exam and found that lump. I would have been dead long before my first mammogram. Alexis not only gave us Lexi, but she also saved my life.
After a bilateral mastectomy, three months of intensive chemo, and a year-long clinical drug trial, I was declared cancer-free. I was so fortunate to have an entire army helping my family through our cancer journey, but I was haunted by the thought of Alexis taking the bus home from chemo and all of those who were battling this beast without support. Something had to be done.
I didn’t have much, but I did have a pipedream about helping people on their cancer journeys, and luckily, a billionaire from Texas believed in pipedreams. In 2012, I won a grant on The Ellen Show.
What started as a tiny non-profit serving just four families has now delivered over 1.8 million meals, offers a nationwide peer support network, and provides practical support to families across the country, from San Francisco, California, to Buffalo, New York. PRG is proof that tragic life events can be the catalyst for something good.
Real Support, Right Now So That No One Travels This Road Alone
1 in every 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer. And every 5 minutes someone learns they have gynecological cancer. For those diagnosed, research is too late. They need practical help with daily demands so they can focus on the fight.
Healthy Meals
Doorstep delivery of delicious, healthy meals for the entire household that can be cooked in minutes.
Rides to Treatment with PRG Transportation Specialists
PRG’s concierge ride service picks up clients at their front door and ensures they arrive on time and return home safely.
Cleaning Essentials from Branch Basics
To support healing in a clean environment, PRG provides all-natural cleaning products.
Peer Support
To combat the isolation many feel after a cancer diagnosis, PRG offers both in-person and virtual events through its nationwide peer support network.
PRG’s Impact
Those in the fight for their life need every advantage they can get. 56% of PRG clients fall below the poverty line. Can you imagine battling cancer and not knowing where your next meal is coming from?
PRG services are provided free of charge to breast and gynecological cancer patients and their families regardless of age, stage, or socioeconomic status.
Those who receive PRG’s services have better treatment compliance, and studies show that the more closely someone follows their treatment plan, the better their cancer treatment outcomes tend to be.
The Pink Fleet
If you work in the trades around Dayton, you've probably seen a pink concrete mixer. There's a story behind it.
Some of PRG's first business supporters were contractors. One of them, John Ernst, reluctantly painted a mixer pink, questioning Heather, who on earth was going to want to drive a pink truck? Turns out, the driver who got it ended up retiring with that truck and wouldn't let anyone else touch it. A few days after it hit the road, John called Heather. Customers were telling him they wouldn't pour concrete unless it came out of the pink mixer. He added three more pink mixers!
That idea grew into the Pink Fleet, a group of businesses that wrap trucks and equipment in pink to support PRG. When Cara started at PRG almost four years ago, the fleet had 27 vehicles. Now there are more than 100. They cover every industry you can think of: concrete, excavation, trucking, and even a florist. Each vehicle now carries a simple message: this vehicle provides 500 meals and 200 rides to treatment.
Matt had been to Ignite before as a guest of other Pink Fleet partners. He knew the people in that room. Many of them run crews, haul materials, and face the same weather and deadlines we do.
Why Champion Chose Pink Ribbon Good
A few things made the decision easy.
First, it's local. PRG started in Dayton and is still based here. The people it serves go to treatment at the same hospitals our customers and employees use. When we support PRG, the help lands with our neighbors.
Second, the numbers are clear. Anyone who runs a yard knows the value of knowing exactly where material goes. PRG works the same way with money. They tell partners what a gift buys, down to the meal and the ride.
Third, the Pink Fleet is full of people like our customers. Contractors, haulers, and equipment operators have been the backbone of PRG's support for years. Joining them felt natural.
And finally, PRG is easy to work alongside. Cara put it this way in our first meeting:
"I think it's important when you have a partnership, it should be something you guys are passionate about just as much as us." Cara Salazar, Pink Ribbon Good
A Pink Bag, Pink Salt, and a Pink Semi
The pink salt started as a practical decision.
Anyone who has salted a parking lot at 4 a.m. knows the problem. White rock salt disappears on snow and ice. Once it's down, it's hard to tell which parts of a walk or lot were treated and which were missed. Crews end up double-salting some spots and skipping others.
Colored salt fixes that. You can see exactly where it landed, so coverage is even, and nothing gets missed. That makes the work faster for crews and safer for everyone walking across it.
Color also keeps the product consistent. Rock salt is mined in different parts of the world, and its natural shade shifts depending on where it comes from. One season it looks gray, the next almost white. It works the same either way, but customers notice. A colored bag looks the same every year.
Once we decided to color it anyway, Matt asked the obvious question.
"If we're going to color it, why don't we use this to raise some money and bring awareness to PRG?" Matt Brun, Owner, Champion Mulch & Landscape Supply
That's how Champion Contractor's Choice Ice Melt ended up pink. It's a 50 lb bag of fast-acting sodium chloride rock salt, rated to 5°F. The bag carries the PRG logo and our partnership line: Clearing Ice, Crushing Cancer.
Here's how the giving works. Champion has made a committed partnership gift to PRG. The line on every bag, which says the product helps provide 500 healthy meals and 200 rides to treatment for people in the fight of their lives, reflects what that gift covers. There's no per-bag math to track. The support is already committed.
Those bags travel. Champion bags and sells wholesale salt, and our product moves through dealers and stores across a wide region, roughly from southern Michigan down to Louisville. A pink bag you pick up at a hardware store two states away may have started in our supply chain. That's part of the point.
"Wherever those bags end up, it's going to bring awareness." Matt Brun
Then there's the truck. One of our multi-drop delivery semis is now wrapped in pink and officially part of the Pink Fleet. It runs Champion routes across Southwest Ohio like any other truck in our lineup. It just stands out more.
How PRG Fits With Our Ronald McDonald House Partnership
Champion supports two organizations, each serving a different part of our business.
Our 2026 retail mulch program supports Ronald McDonald House Southwest Ohio, with donations designated to the Dayton house on Valley Street. That's where the yard signs, the $3 yard sign discount, and the add-on donations at checkout come in. If you bought mulch from us this spring, you've already been part of it.
PRG is our winter and wholesale partner. It lives on the pink salt bags, on the semi, and in the Pink Fleet. Different season, different customers, same goal: help local families get through something hard.
How You Can Help
You can support Pink Ribbon Good and the families it serves in several ways. Whether you see a pink bag at a local store or know someone who could use support, a small action can help connect more people with PRG.
Look for Champion Contractor’s Choice Ice Melt. Find the pink 50 lb bag at Champion locations or through our wholesale customers. The partnership gift behind the bag supports PRG; the meals and rides noted on the packaging describe the impact of that gift, not a donation made for each bag sold.
Help someone find support. PRG provides free services to people with breast or gynecological cancer and their families. If someone you know could use help, direct them to Pink Ribbon Good to learn what’s available in their area.
Help the partnership travel farther. If you spot our pink semi or a pink bag, share a photo and tag Champion and Pink Ribbon Good. If your business operates trucks or equipment, contact PRG to learn about joining the Pink Fleet.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Pink Ribbon Good?
Pink Ribbon Good (PRG) is a nonprofit based in Dayton, Ohio, that provides free healthy meals, rides to treatment, house cleaning essentials, and peer support to people with breast and gynecological cancer and their families. Services are free regardless of income.
Why is Champion's ice melt pink?
We color it so you can see it. Plain rock salt is hard to spot on snow and ice, so colored salt shows exactly what's been treated and what's been missed. It also keeps the product looking consistent from year to year. Since we were coloring it anyway, we chose pink to support PRG and raise breast cancer awareness.
Does part of every bag go to PRG?
Champion made a committed partnership gift to PRG up front, rather than calculating a donation per bag. The message on the bag, 500 healthy meals and 200 rides to treatment, reflects what that gift provides.
What kind of ice melt is Contractor's Choice?
Champion Contractor's Choice Ice Melt is sodium chloride rock salt in a 50 lb bag. It's fast-acting and rated to 5°F. Contact any Champion location for wholesale pricing and availability.
Where can I buy the pink bags?
You can find the pink bags at Champion locations and through our wholesale customers. Because Champion wholesales salt across the region, you may also find them at hardware and supply stores from southern Michigan to the Louisville area.
Is Champion still supporting Ronald McDonald House?
Yes. Our 2026 retail mulch program, including the yard sign discount and add-on donations, supports Ronald McDonald House Southwest Ohio, with donations designated to the Dayton house. PRG is our winter and wholesale partner.
What is the Pink Fleet?
The Pink Fleet is a group of businesses that wrap trucks and equipment in pink to support PRG. It started with a single pink concrete mixer and now includes more than 100 vehicles. Champion's pink semi is our part of the fleet.
Who does PRG help?
People with breast and gynecological cancer and their families. PRG is also piloting support for all cancer types in Nashville.
How do I get help from PRG for myself or someone I know?
Visit pinkribbongood.org or call PRG directly at 877. 269. 5367. There's no income requirement, and a PRG team member will walk new clients through the services available in their area.
How can I donate to PRG directly?
You can give at pinkribbongood.org. Because PRG follows a "give where you live" model, money raised in our region stays with families in our region.
Back in the Room
Near the end of the night at Ignite, Heather talked about what PRG can and can't do. Doctors and researchers lead the fight for a cure. PRG helps people get through treatment by helping them reach appointments, putting meals on the table, and making sure they have support along the way.
"We cannot promise that cancer won't change someone's life, but we can promise they will not face it alone." Heather Salazar, Founder and CEO, Pink Ribbon Good
A cancer diagnosis can change a family’s life in a single phone call. PRG helps families face what comes next with practical support and a community beside them.
Champion’s partnership is one way we can help that support reach more people. When winter arrives, our crews work to keep lots, walks, and roads clear. Through PRG, we’re also helping families in our community get meals, rides to treatment, and the reminder that they don’t have to face cancer alone.
That’s what our pink bag and pink semi stand for: showing up for our neighbors when they need support.
Champion Mulch & Landscape Supply has made a committed partnership gift to Pink Ribbon Good for the 2026-2027 salt season. The donation is not calculated per bag. The message on Champion Contractor's Choice Ice Melt reflects the meals and rides that the gift provides.
Sources (click to expand)
WYSO: Local organization Pink Ribbon Good delivers over one million meals
Heather Salazar, Ignite 2026 remarks, September 12, 2026
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