This event is a celebration for women whose lives have been affected by cancer and their supporters. We gather together to connect with old and new sisters; to learn about cancer-related issues facing women; and to nourish our bodies, minds, and spirits. This year’s theme is “Sharing Stories to Build Community: Nurturing the creative parts of each other.”
The event program will feature a keynote address by Dean Renée White of Simmons College, a performance by spoken word poet Ashley Rose Salomon and a presentation of Healthy Steps, an exercise and movement program designed for cancer patients and survivors. Dr. Yvonne Gomez-Carrion of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center will emcee.
This unique gathering provides an opportunity for women to share, network, laugh, cry and rediscover our resilience and strength. Send RSVPs and questions to Catherine Basham, cbasham@fenwayhealth.org, 617-927-6134. The event is free, but space is limited.
Started in 1999, the Audre Lorde Cancer Awareness Brunch is named in memory of Audre Lorde, a self-described “Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet.” A graduate of Columbia University and Hunter College, where she later held the prestigious post of Thomas Hunter Chair of Literature, she was also a cancer survivor who bravely documented her 14-year battle against the disease in “The Cancer Journals” and in her book of essays “A Burst of Light”. She struggled against a medical establishment frequently indifferent to cultural differences and insensitive to women’s health issues and defied societal rules that said she should hide the fact that she had breast cancer. Lorde died of cancer on November 17, 1992.