Photo of the Day: Nurses Unite for Breast Cancer Awareness

It started out as an idea to do something cute to raise awareness of breast cancer, but Patti Cozzi didn't realize she'd started something bigger.

Cozzi began embroidering slogans onto pink t-shirts, including sayings like "Fight Like a Girl," "Support the Girls," and others. She began selling them to her colleagues in the Post Anesthesia Care Unit, hoping just to recoup the cost of the t-shirts. But the shirts took off like crazy, and before she knew it, she'd made about 100 of them – and began using the shirts as a fundraiser for the Carol M. Baldwin Breast Health Center at Stony Brook University Medical Center, where she's been a nurse for the past 14 years.

On Tuesday, the Post Anesthesia Care Unit was a sea of pink as the nurses wore their t-shirts to work.

"I thought it would be a fun way to promote awareness, but I never thought by any chance that it would go this far," Cozzi said.

According to some of her colleagues, the pink embroidered t-shirts caused a chain reaction that had people buying them for friends and family members and getting pink hair extensions.

"We love our shirts," said Karen Wiederkehr, a clinician at the hospital. "They're adorable and everyone who sees them wants one. They're wonderful."

The message is personal for Cozzi, 48, of Smithtown. Four years ago, she lost her mother to breast cancer following a long battle with the disease.

"We do a lot in her memory," she said. "I think we did a great job here today."