When you ask these ladies what The Breakfast Club means to them, the answer is unanimous: “Everything.”
“Now I tell people now that my breast cancer is a blessing,” Breakfast Club member Ella Jones said. “The reason is because, I made a covenant with God. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do … He healed me, and I have met my covenant with Him.”
“There is nothing they could ask me that I would not do,” Jan Bordeaux said. “God puts people in your path for a duration or for a lifetime. I feel they are in my life for a lifetime.”
The American met with some members of The Breakfast Club at the home of its cofounder, president, and rock, Sherrill Jackson. The group recently celebrated its 20th anniversary with a jazz brunch at Orlando’s in Maryland Heights.
The Breakfast Club got its name from Jackson reaching out to a church member who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer by inviting her to breakfast so the two could talk and share.
“That was a four-hour breakfast,” Jackson said. “Now, what I don’t know is how women heard we were having breakfast and joined us.”
Word got around. It grew from there.
“At a point, we had to decide whether we wanted to be small and intimate or whether there was a bigger reason,” Jackson said, “and we decided that there must be a bigger reason for us to get together.”
They went from restaurants to eventually church, and the Breakfast Club has been at Centennial Christian Church (4950 Fountain, St. Louis 63113) ever since, for regular monthly sharing meetings and other programs.
Through grants and private donations, the Breakfast Club educates and promotes breast examinations and mammogram screenings and brings in speakers to discuss various health topics. It also provides free comfort kits to women undergoing chemotherapy and radiation, breast forms and bras to women who have no insurance or who are underinsured.
“When funds run out, then we just sometimes use our own funds so that we don’t have to cut the program out, especially when we know it’s needed.” Jackson said.
The type of support Breakfast Club members provide for each other goes deeper – to the heart. It may be a listening ear, somewhere to get answers to your most intimate questions, sometimes even before you know how to ask it. It is supporting each other during the loss of loved ones. Their support for one another forms powerful and enduring bonds between women who have faced breast cancer.
“It makes a difference when you have sisters who are going through the same journey or can give you some advice on what to do,” Jones said.
The club’s Buddy Program pairs a member with a woman newly diagnosed with cancer. Being recommended by another member to become a Buddy gave Diane Stevenson a sense of purpose that answered her prayers.
“Just knowing that you are helping these women out here, it has meant the world to me,” Stevenson said. “So, basically, the Breakfast Club is my family now and I am there to share, I am there to educate and to do whatever I can whenever it’s needed.”
“Sometimes it’s spiritual, sometimes it’s about your faith,” Jones said. “Sometimes you can be in a financial situation that you don’t want to tell everyone, but your Buddy is your confidante and your Buddy can help you.”
Carolyn Vaughn came to the Breakfast Club to run its Faith on the Move program in area churches. She said it opened her eyes to how much women needed to talk and learn about breast health and breast cancer. “It was so warm and wonderful for the ladies to share,” Vaughn said. Faith on the Move is now involved with 40 churches, Jackson said, offering mammograms to women in St. Louis city and county.
Its Healthy Eating program, funded by the Missouri Foundation for Health, teaches women about breast health and making healthier food and lifestyle choices to reduce obesity and the risk for breast cancer.
Jackson said Africa-American women have always had a higher mortality rate for breast cancer, though white women got breast cancer more than black women. Now, she said, due to obesity black woman are contracting breast cancer more often – “and they are still dying from it.”
For exercise, some club members regularly participate in the Livestrong program at the YMCA for cancer survivors. Anyone who has had any cancer at any age qualifies for the Livestrong program, Jackson said.
“We don’t focus on losing weight, we focus on trying to change behaviors,” Jackson said. “But along the way, a lot of the ladies who participate are losing weight.”
The Breakfast Club’s Breast Health Outside the Box program serves beauty shops and health fairs and reaches out to women in assisted-living facilities and at the St. Louis County Justice Center. “We are trying to expand that some so that when they are ready for release, we can help them,” Jackson said.
Jackson said there are about 250 Breakfast Club members, including The Breakfast Club Brothers – men who support their women and meet separately – and Breakfast Club Kids, children of cancer survivors, who perform community service. Jackson’s husband Ronnie was right by her side during her journey with breast cancer and the Breakfast Club. He even used to show women how to perform breast self-exams. Ronnie passed away a few months short of seeing the organization through its 20th anniversary celebration. The ladies said his presence was certainly felt, and the Breakfast Club was there for Jackson in her grief.
In the spring, Breakfast Club members are looking forward to being at the annual St. Louis Pow Wow of American Indians, to be held April 21 at Washington University. They are coordinating getting a mammogram van there for breast screenings.
“It’s a community thing, a labor of love, not just for African-American women or minority women,” Bordeaux said. “It’s for all women to participate and learn of each other. And when we learn more, we can do better.”
For more information about The Breakfast Club, call 314-972-8883, email bci@breakfastclub-stl.org or visit www.breakfastclub-stl.org.
