Sisters United: 20 years of reducing health disparities
“Racial disparities in the awareness, diagnosis and treatment of cancer can have a devastating effect on individuals and their families.” — Medical News Today
“I don’t know if it’s a minority thing,” said Patty Young.
But when she and husband John visit a nice restaurant for the first time, they instinctively scan the room in search of another Black face.
Said Young, “Even if I see one on the kitchen staff, it makes me feel safer, more relaxed.”
Young founded Springfield’s Sisters United for Prevention in 2004 so people of color would learn to see early cancer screening and treatment as a minority thing.
The organization that recently donated $20,000 to buy 10 infusion chairs for the Springfield Cancer Center will hold its 20th annual cancer awareness event and style show at 11:30 a.m. May 11 at the Mercantile Building on the Clark County Fairgrounds.
Featured speaker will be Dr. Sharon Malone, whose book “Grown Women Talk” rose to sixth last week on the New York Times Bestseller List in the Advice, How to and Miscellaneous category.
An obstetrician/gynecologist and certified menopause practitioner, she will discuss health issues of menopause, including why women with little or no family history of breast cancer should reconsider hormone treatment.
Although to be avoided by people who have a family history of breast cancer, hormone therapy has been shown to help those without that history manage hot flashes and mood swings of menopause while protecting themselves from an even larger risk factor in their lives: heart disease.
A nationally known figure and the wife of former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Malone is coming in part because of a local connection the Sisters rooted out. Malone was a college roommate of Deidre Stephens, John Legend’s stepmother.
But Young said Malone is also being drawn by something all speakers have remarked on from the event’s inception: The rare opportunity to connect with a large audience of color about cancer at a time when cancer deaths among minorities outpace those of whites living in the same society.
Although disparities in cancer outcomes are writ large in statistical studies, it was a personal connection that led Young to found the group.
“I had two girlfriends that had breast cancer,” she said, and they weren’t aware free wigs and makeup were available to address hair loss and other cosmetic effects of chemotherapy through the American Cancer Society’s “Look Good, Feel Better” program.
It was while participating in a cancer awareness event in Urbana that Young was struck by two things.
One: “I’m hearing about all this cancer amongst us (meaning women of color) and I’m not seeing us in the audience. We weren’t there.”
Two: That a simple change in the background music to jazz and the addition of a fashion show tailored to a Black audience could make it a success.
Young had the additional advantage of being the owner of a beauty salon, an institution as important among women of color as the barbershop is to men of color.
This year, seven men will join a dozen women cancer survivors to model not only clothing but that how to carry on in the face of a cancer diagnosis and treatment.
“I played around in my head with this (idea) for two or three years” and nearly wore her husband out talking about it, Young said.
So, she got on with it, adding one more element to the community gathering spot that her business was as her mother’s had been before her.
“From there, it just went,” Young said, aided mightily by “a great team.”
“I couldn’t have done it without them.”
That the Sisters event drew almost 500 last year in their first year at the Mercantile Building reflects their members’ deep and wide influence in the Black community.
Ann Hembree, the psychosocial director of the Springfield Cancer Center, said their influence doesn’t surprise her.
“They bring together some of the most powerful, gracious women I have ever met,” Hembree said. “They are very caring about this community.”
“For years, (they have) supported minority patients through an emergency assistance fund ... for (patients’) food, household and transportation expenses,” during treatment.
“That is the number one barrier to cancer care,” she added, “transportation.”
Gale Nicholson, the Cancer Center’s nurse manager, said tending those needs “relieves (patients) of some stress” in a stressful time just as the higher seats of the new infusion chairs the Sisters donated make it easier for patients to stand.
Twenty years after its founding, Young wonders where the time has gone but is now more at ease about the organization’s future.
“I need somebody to step forward when I decide to stop,” she said, and is gratified that, last year, her daughter, Kelly Bray, of Columbus agreed to be her heir apparent. When that will happen isn’t clear.
Mark your calendar for ice cream: The Springfield Cancer Center celebrates its 20th anniversary with a program and ice cream social from 1-3 p.m. Aug. 10 at the center.