By ALAN DOOLEY

What color are barges on the Mississippi River? Most are grey. A few are red. A few are green, and others are blue.

But one is pink. Bright pink.

The pink bulk commodity barge, known as Big Hope 1, is a 200-by-35-foot covered hopper barge that hauls bulk agricultural commodities — up to 2,400 tons in a single load.

Big Hope 1, owned and operated by Ceres Barge Lines of St. Louis, arrived at Gateway FS’s Kemper’s Landing elevator facility in a steady rain Monday morning. There, she quickly started taking on such a load to return to New Orleans for export shipment overseas.

Why a pink barge? Built in 2012, the barge is both telling the story about the ongoing fight to end cancer – all types of cancer – and putting its money where its mouth is. In addition to soliciting donations, a portion of the funds earned with the barge are donated to the fight.

To date, according to Ceres Barge Line co-owner Mark Mestemacher, more than $330,000 has been raised. The money is going to an organization known as the Mary Crowley Cancer Research Center in Dallas, Texas.

Vince Schu, who heads up Ceres’ heavy lift division, which moves oversize cargos like turbine generators, related how his wife came up with the idea.

“We were shopping for a new washer and dryer and saw a pink washer. The salesperson said that a percentage of the receipts for these washers would be donated to cancer research. Both my family and my wife Julie’s have been impacted by cancer, and she turned to me and said, ‘You ought to paint a barge pink!’”

The pink barge was launched in 2012.

Ceres considered several cancer-related charities, but zeroed in on the Mary Crowley organization for two major reasons.

“They have amazingly low administrative costs,” Mestemacher said. “About 90 percent of donations go to research and care. And for our project, they have promised that 100 percent will go to their work,” he added.

In addition, The Mary Crowley group does not support only one type of cancer fight. Individuals or organizations that want to donate to them at www.marycrowley.org can specify if they want to target prostate cancer, or breast cancer or any form of cancer.

When Big Hope 1 isn’t hauling thousands of tons of farm products, she participates in fundraising events. Two years ago she was featured in a cancer fight event in front of the Arch in St. Louis. Last year, she was seen for the same fundraising in New Orleans.

But right now, with the bumper crops throughout the Midwest, the barge is hard at work, hauling cargoes and making steady donations.

If you’d like to see a video of her being built and hear from the people behind this project, visit www.ceresbarge.com/big-hope-1-barge.php.