HERS Breast Cancer Foundation :: Bras for Body & Soul

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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 >> Offering Comfort: Threads of Hope Quilt a help for families of breast cancer victims

by Kathleen McKinley, staff writer
Argus/Daily Review/Oakland Tribune in the San Francisco Bay Area, California
Tuesday, October 19, 1999

Fremont -- The messages written on the Threads of Hope breast cancer quilt are for both victims and survivors. Peggy, you are loved more than you will ever know. Tami Ann ... Keep on keeping on! Your sis, Ruth I survived.

Signing the quilt is a way to remember a lost loved one as well as a way to rejoice in surviving, said one of the quilt’s creators Tricia McMahon of Fremont. The public is invited to add names to the quilt Wednesday at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation’s Fremont center. The quilt, along with breast cancer information, is on display throughout October in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

McMahon started the quilt two years ago after she wrote her grandmother’s name on another quilt in Oakland. Her grandmother died of breast cancer before she was born. "As I wrote my grandmother’s name I felt like I met her for the first time. I was crying," she said. "It was beautiful. I decided to create an experience like this in Fremont." With the help of Cheryl Maloney of Fremont, she made the quilt and started a monthly support group for breast cancer patients, survivors and their family and friends.

"We wanted the quilt to be user-friendly so that men, women and children would feel comfortable adding the name of their loved one," said McMahon who, with Maloney, also runs a specialty bra business for breast cancer patients. The names on the quilt include those of Peggy Wright, a 39-year-old Fremont mother of two who died in 1998, and Kathy Woodyard, a 32-year-old Fremont police officer who died in February.

Wright’s in-laws wrote her name on the quilt. Her husband, Kevin Wright of Fremont, said having her name there was wonderful. "It makes an impact on the public and opens people’s eyes to the total devastation that breast cancer brings to a family, " he said. Writing on the quilt also helps those left behind, McMahon said.

While the quilt is on display, McMahon said she hopes to draw attention to her and Maloney’s newest outreach effort--the HERS Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to helping women and their families deal with the disease. The foundation, quilt and support group are ways to do something meaningful, McMahon said. "With breast cancer being such an epidemic, I wanted to do something positive," she said.

The Threads of Hope breast cancer support group meets 7 to 8 p .m. on the third Thursday of the month at St. Anne’s Episcopal Church, 2791 Driscoll Road, Fremont. For more information about the HERS Foundation, call (510) 490-3447 or visit the Web site: www.hersfund.org