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Breast Friends
There is no more creative force in the world than menopausal women with zest - Margaret Meade
The Breast Friends are a group of ten menopausal women from a small farming community in Southern Saskatchewan . By day they are post office workers, retailers, librarians, teachers, secretaries, florists and retirees – by night they are a force to be reckoned with! This amazing group of gals from Foam Lake, has dished up 3 best selling cook books raising over $900,000 for the fight against cancer.
In the summer of 2003, after a scare with her own health and the loss of some very special people, Linda Helgason decided to ride with the Prairie Women on Snowmobiles to raise money for breast cancer research. The rest of the group jumped on board to act as her fundraising committee and became Breast Friends. Nat Dunlop, Val Helgason, Jeannie Johnson, Jacquie Klebeck, Charlene Rokochy, Darlene Cooper, Cecile Halyk, Anne Reynolds and Patti Hack decided to host a banquet to raise the $3000 Linda needed.
Without even a dash or a pinch of catering experience they set out to prepare dinner for 150 women. Even before the dishes were done, they were inundated with requests for the recipes. The pot was stirred and the end result was a community cookbook that included not only the recipes for the dishes served at the fundraiser, but a collection of over 250 of their own family favorites. Yummy!
Once Christmas was over and all of their families had gone home – the work began. They cooked and ate and took pictures and ate, and laughed and typed and retyped and ate some more. In the end they had not only compiled a cookbook – they had formed a publishing company, produced their own photo shoots, amassed tons of information about breast cancer, obtained permission from the dozens of sources to reprint it, gathered humour and quotes about women and hired a printer, a shipper, a graphic artist, a photographer and shipped a book to the printer. Eventually, they mustered the confidence to actually order 2500 books. At that point most believed that there would be cases of books lurking in their basements collecting dust for decades. They were so wrong!
Their goal in publishing their first “little community cookbook” was to donate $3000 to the fight against breast cancer. While they spent 20 months of hauling cases in the trunks of their cars to trade fairs, hospital lobbies, women’s nights, and cancer runs, they became a best seller in just 3 months. Beating the average time line by about 7 years!
They listened to breast cancer survivors about where the needs were greatest. They heard from doctors, nurses, radiologists and most importantly women struggling with the disease. They have funded promotional material for newly diagnosed women and bought equipment for assessment centres and for chemotherapy wards. They have purchased air beds for palliative care centres to enable patients to be more comfortable. They have made funds available to hospices, women’s centres, and to agencies that hold information meetings for breast cancer patients. Recently they have purchased infusion pumps for chemotherapy wards, so that more patients could be treated in their community and wouldn’t have to travel for treatment. Their newest project is purchasing breast cancer information kits that will circulate to health offices and schools. These kits will help teach young girls about breast health and how to do breast self exams.
During this same year of amazing ‘busyness’, their youngest member, Darlene, lost her husband, Kevin to melanoma at 49 years of age. Production was put on hold and the Breast Friends rallied around Darlene and her family. That inspired them to once again channel their energies and they cooked up a second book, “For the Breasts and the Rest of Friends”, which is dedicated to Kevin, other family members and loved ones that have lost the battle to other forms of cancer. After a winter of hard work keeping up with the demands of their first book, writing and publishing a second, and making sure that they still had time for some fun, some laughs and of course some food - the Breast Friends have successfully served up a second course of fabulous recipes! What began as a project for their daughters and granddaughters and the other women in their lives, has now expanded to include their husbands, sons, son-in-laws and grandsons. These men spent much of last year loading books, unloading books, delivering books and supporting wives who were away “with the book.” Men don’t seem to be able to talk about their cancers, or wear the ribbons or march the marches. So they hoped, with this next book they would do a little of that for them.
Over the last five years they have become sisters spending hours together crying, laughing, problem solving and working together. The theme of their first banquet was a “Celebration of Womanhood” and this group has continued to celebrate women and nurture the bond they have formed.
Everything else has been ‘gravy’!
