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Out of all the programs that Richard Cowles inherited when he became the Peers Accepting Learning and Sharing program adviser, only one survives: Pink Week.

And that’s because Cowles is 100 percent committed to the outcome that Pink Week produces: raising money that directly benefits women who are battling breast cancer in central Texas.

All of the money raised each year goes directly to the Breast Cancer Resource Center, a central Texas charity that provides services directly to local cancer patients. For example, the resource center provides drivers to take people to their medical appointments and support groups that provide a safe, supportive environment for cancer survivors to share stories, voice questions and nurture one another.

The PALS have been hosting Pink Week on the Mac campus since 2010. Cowles became PALS adviser in 2011.

Cowles told the PALS this week that he remembered when the group’s target was $300. Now, it’s $1,000.

The group fell short of that goal but not by much. Cowles announced at the pep rally that the group had raised more the $750, and as of today, the group still had to get an official coin count to determine the final amount.

This year’s Pink Week had to overcome several challenges. Monday was a student holiday, and Wednesday was devoted to PSAT testing so seniors weren’t on campus for lunchtime Pink Week activities, and many of the PSAT test takers were wiped out from their morning of testing.

“We powered through as we do,” said PALS member Charlie Holden, among the seniors celebrating their last Pink Week as Mac students.

Early in the week, it looked like the school’s status as a latex-aware campus would jeopardize the annual water balloon PAL-lery, but campus officials ultimately decided that awareness didn’t preclude the PAL-lery from happening. The PALS then made more than 1,020 water balloons for the PAL-lery on Thursday and Friday, and they used up six cans of shaving cream making the pies for the MACulty faces who were hit with them at the Friday PINK WEEK pep rally.

The snow cone machine, another late week campus favorite, was beset by an undisclosed number of bees, which Holden jokingly estimated to be at least “a colony and a half.”

No one was stung, and all paying customers received their snow cones without incident.

Prior to those Pink Week adventures, the PALS conducted trinket sales, face painting, nail painting, tie-dyed shirts, a 3-point shootout and, for the first time ever, pink hair dye.

Photos by Anna Compton, Harper Cummings, Jazzabelle Davishines, Ellen Fox, Ella Irwin, Gregory James, Laszlo King-Hovis, Madison Olsen, Kelsey Tasch and Bodhi Tripathi.