HERS Breast Cancer Foundation :: Bras for Body & Soul

FAQs

The HERS Breast Cancer Foundation, a 501(c)(3) a non-profit organization, provides programs and services supporting the needs of women and families affected by breast cancer in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Bras for Body & Soul is a specialty bra shop and extended services for all women, including women who have had breast surgery, in order to make a positive difference in women's lives.

News >> Hall of Fame inductees are inspirations to us all

The Argus of Fremont, Newark and Union City, March 8, 1998

The names of Donna Olsen and Tricia J. McMahon are among eight outstanding inductees into the Fifth Annual Women's Hall of Fame for Alameda County.

That's the end result of Saturday's ceremony celebrating the service of two Fremont women on what was, appropriately, International Women's Day.

We hope it doesn't just stop there, though.

This month is Women's History Month. It continues a tradition that goes back, arguably, to 1908 when the U.S. Socialist Party instituted Women's Day to increase awareness of the Women's Suffrage Movement.

That was a long and hard-fought struggle. And though women finally won and have come a long way since, women around the world still are fighting for their proper recognition in history. During this month, women's accomplishments throughout the years are being highlighted all over the world.

"In order to find out how women have made history, we have to look at what they are doing on a daily basis," says Christine Gailey, coordinator of the women's studies program at Northeastern University in Boston.

This is where our neighbors Olsen and McMahon come in, along with the six other Alameda County inductees and the many others across the nation and the world who are making a difference.

Olsen and McMahon are women whose styles are not to seek the limelight or to toot their own trumpets, but to work quietly to permit the greatest number of people to experience the greatest amount of good.

Twenty-seven years ago, Olsen and other conservationists organized a public meeting at which the Tri-City Ecology Center was born--when no fewer than 300 people showed up. Since then, Olsen has had a hand in everything that our children and their children will have cause to be grateful for in our environment, including early recycling efforts, protection of the Fremont hills and the acquisition of sensitive lands to protect endangered species.

Since 1995, McMahon has synthesized the sacred and the secular, integrating her background as a nun with her drive as a businesswoman to create a company called Bras for Body & Soul, where she gives personal consultations and fittings for women who have had or have cancer.

Professing that her undertaking is more a ministry than a profit-making enterprise, McMahon last year founded Fremont's Threads of Hope, Breast Cancer Community Quilt Project. This monthly gathering offers women with breast cancer and those who love them a chance for reflection and peace. The quilt will go on display when complete to raise awareness of breast cancer.

While their fields--Olsen in environment and McMahon in health--are different, their activities show they share a common belief based on an ancient leadership principle that to serve is to lead. It springs from the understanding that the work of influencing people can only be gradual. The idea is that people who want to lead must learn to serve. If we want people to follow us, we have to meet them where they are. Leading them means helping them to fulfill their needs.

Olsen and McMahon gave their commitment to the principle that is summed up in the famous words at the end of the prayer attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi: "For it is in giving that we receive."

We think the names Olsen and McMahon belong not only on the wall of the county administration building in Oakland but also in our hearts, for they are inspirations to us all.