Awareness ribbons are everywhere, whether in the form of car magnets, windshield stickers, or pins on our clothes. No matter where you see them, the idea is still the same: for that person to show their support to the world for a certain cause or organization.
Before writing this article, I only knew what a handful of awareness ribbon colors actually meant or supported. Are you curious, too? Here’s what the most common awareness ribbon colors mean!
Pink Ribbon: Pink is most commonly associated with breast cancer awareness, but it’s used for more than just that. What many people don’t know is that pink ribbons are also symbols for respecting birth parents and for childhood cancer awareness.
Yellow Ribbon: Yellow is commonly seen as a symbol to support our troops and to give us hope. However, it is also a symbol for POW/MIA (Prisoners of War, Missing in Action), suicide prevention, adoptive parents, spina bifida, sarcoma, missing children, bone cancer, craniofacial acceptance, and endometriosis. Also, be aware that a yellow ribbon with a heart is used to represent the survivors left behind after a suicide.
Red Ribbon: Red is generally used to show support for the fight against HIV/AIDS. This ribbon is also a symbol for stroke, heart disease, substance abuse, MADD, DARE, epidermolysis bullosa, complex regional pain syndrome (formerly known as reflex sympathetic dystrophy), and vasculitis.
Blue Ribbon: Blue is associated with child abuse awareness/prevention. It is also used to represent drunk driving awareness, colon cancer (alternative ribbon color: brown), dystonia, bullying awareness, osteogenesis imperfecta (brittle bone disease), addiction recovery awareness, prostate cancer, Huntington’s disease, domestic violence, victim’s rights, free speech, Canada’s National Non Smoking Week, chronic fatigue syndrome, and human trafficking and sex slavery awareness (navy blue ribbon).
Green Ribbon: Green is most commonly used for childhood depression. It also represents missing children, environmental concerns, kidney cancer, tissue/organ donation, cerebral palsy awareness and support, Lyme disease, liver cancer, pedestrian safety, traumatic brain injury awareness and support, and craniosynostosis awareness for varied organizations.
Black Ribbon: Black ribbons are used as general symbols for mourning, and you may see magnetic versions raising awareness for POW/MIA as an alternative to yellow. It’s not solely for mourning, though — black also represents melanoma awareness and gang prevention.
Purple Ribbon: Purple typically represents pancreatic cancer. It is also a symbol for Alzheimer’s disease, lupus, animal abuse, Crohn’s disease, cystic fibrosis, fibromyalgia, sarcoidosis awareness, thyroid cancer, ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder), and religious tolerance.
Believe it or not, I have barely scratched the surface on awareness ribbon color symbolism! This is just a small list of the most popular colors. You’ll likely see a rainbow of colors out there — each with an abundance of meanings — all supporting good causes and awareness organizations. No matter which cause you support, be sure to do it with pride in as many forms as you can. You can never show a good cause too much love!
Which one of these awareness ribbon colors was new to you? Did we miss anything? Which causes do YOU support?
Image credit to Qualitylogoproducts.com.
Article by cjones
Candice is on the web team at QLP. She's extremely family-oriented and enjoys spending all of her free time with her daughter and family. She LOVES to shop and just experience life again through her daughter's eyes. There's nothing better than that in the world for her!
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Give me one of each! Support ALL THE THINGS!! Seriously though. Many of these have affected my family directly, so thanks for letting me know which colors go with each. Now I have a reference to always turn to!
Yeah I’m the same way! I am willing to support any good causes whether it effects me personally or not. Because I know if i was in that person’s shoes i’d hope to do the same for me!
What a cool post Candice! I see these all over, and never knew the colors meant so many different things! I see the yellow “support our troops” and pink “breast cancer awareness” ribbons a lot, but all of the other colors were new to me! Thanks for all the great information!
Yeah I was the same way. I really only knew about yellow, red, and pink awareness ribbons. Even then though I wasn’t aware that they represented so many different meanings. So i’m glad i did this post because it just gave me so much more information into what everything means and represents.
Candice this was an awesome blog post idea!! I have always wondered what all of the different colors meant.
The only ones I was really aware of was the Pink Breast Cancer Ribbon because those are ones I have seen everywhere.
And my grandparent both died of Colon Cancer, so the blue ribbon is displayed a lot within our family.
I think it is super cool that each color has so many meanings, and that we can all show off pride and a good cause just by simply displaying a certain color ribbon.
Awesome post Candice!
I think the color ribbon that problem has the most meaning to me that I was aware of until researched the colors for this post is the Green and Blue Ribbon. I actually had a cousin who died from complications from having cerebral palsy. We always support the institution that take care of him and donate to the cause as much as we possibly can but I never knew that the Green Ribbon was a symbol for that affliction. Also I didn’t know that the blue ribbon also represented drunk driving awareness. When i was younger my dad was almost killed by a drunk driver so i take a VERY STRONG stance on that so it was nice to know i can display a blue ribbon to represent that. So now that I know I plan on displaying a those ribbon colors high and proud all the time. Its amazing once you start talking to people how many have been effected by something on that list and how a ribbon color/symbol can probably to anyone.
Great compilation, Candice!
I always find myself Googling what the different color ribbons mean, so thanks for compiling all of the colors in one place. I think I need one of each of these. Currently, I have a friend that’s battling Lyme disease, so I’m going to get myself a green ribbon to support him.
Thanks so much for writing this post, Candice! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to search for what a particular colored ribbon represents for a product description. Now I have them in one handy place, this is totally getting bookmarked
This is a very useful list! I never knew each color could represent so many different causes. We need more colors in the rainbow.
Thanks for the rundown, Candice!
Like Jeff said, thank you for the handy reference, Candice. Much appreciated by all us here, I’m sure, and I’d say the first step in any sort of awareness would be knowing what a particular color ribbon represents.
This rocks! It looks like the blue ribbon is used to symbolize the most causes, which I wasn’t expecting. As others already mentioned, I usually only see the yellow and pink ribbons as of late. Although, I do see the black POW/MIA car ribbons quite a bit where I live!
Thanks for the great resource, Candice!
There needs to be a ribbon protesting assult rifles possession