“I think that the interesting story is how we came to work together in the Roanoke Valley and for the first time to bring all of us who have an interest in women in our community together without the threat of having to compete, but to work together and combine our resources and our energies to create this ‘Pink Print’,” said Peele, RVBCC project consultant and content expert. “The Core Team is just the nucleus of the organization and just the working group, but the Coalition itself has about 45 members,” said Hardy. Those 45 members come from approximately 18 partners and stakeholders who are involved with breast cancer care in the community and across the state. “We have healthcare organizations, volunteer groups, grassroots organizations, physicians, the hospital (Halifax Regional Medical Center), health departments, faith-based communities, local and state politicians,” said Hardy. The origins of the Coalition came about in 2009 when Peele was working with Rural Health Group. “We had an opportunity to apply for funding through Morehouse School of Medicine in order to address needs in our community for women to access breast care,” Peele said. Rural Health Group selected the Gregory B. Davis Foundation to partner with in order to establish a program that would meet the needs of women as well as the continuum of care. Hardy, on the other hand, recalled a shared idea between herself and Peele that came before the initial funding oppor tunity. “Even before that for some reason, Pat and I, our paths crossed and we had lunch and we talked about a vision of a conference for people in the
Roanoke Valley about breast cancer care to bring the services to the area,” said Hardy. Peele said the idea was to bring on other agencies, organizations and members who shared an interest in helping women access care. By 2010, RVBCC was established and the training began for those involved. To continue and expand the effort, a grant award of round two funding was received in November 2011 from Legacy Southeastern United States Collaborative Center of Excellence for Eliminating Dispari ties (SUCCEED) under the auspices of the Morehouse School of Medicine. A grant of $25,000 was officially awarded to the Gregory B. Davis Foundation (GBDF) who will serve as the lead organization providing overall management and coordination. GBDF, who partnered with the Rural Health Group under the previous
grant, will continue to partner with all key or ganizations that make up RVBCC. Peele spoke about how major funding sources tend to trickle down to small Tier I counties like Halifax and Northampton. “By us working together we feel we can create enough action over here in Northeastern North Carolina to say to the rest of the state and to those major funders and those people responsible for divvying out the resources that we have the capacity here—we can pull ourselves together and we have the capacity to do the work on the ground to bring up our outcomes and that can help the state,” she said. One major objective for RVBCC has been the breast cancer continuum, which involves: risk assessment, where women are educated about breast cancer and they deter mine their risk; screening, where a woman gets her clinical breast exam and mammogram; and diagnosis, where a woman’s breast condition is determined. If diagnosed with breast cancer, the woman moves to survivorship where patients and providers are connected. The last stage is end of life cycle. “However, for us, we’re not considering it end of life cycle, we’re considering it quality of life cycle, it has to do with the
quality of care at that stage and also family members and community support,” Peele said. At the conference R VBCC plans to announce a “warm line”, funded by a grant from the Susan G. Komen Foundation, where women can call and get information about services and providers along the continuum. RVBCC members have learned first hand that there is strength in numbers. Peele and Hardy describe the working relationship as a sisterhood among the Core Team and notes those who are involved with the Coalition have a vested personal interest in the work the organization does. “Everybody, no matter who you ask to do something, they’re willing to do it because they realize their stake in the over all picture, not worried about their own individual or ganizations,” said Hardy. “We know that we’re talking about bringing about change, systemic change because what were hoping is that the medical community as well as our faithbased community, our neighbors—everybody will adopt this as a way to help women along the continuum and the services that they need and we’ll all be working together to focus in our community,” said Peele.
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