Local Advocacy Efforts

California Affiliates of Susan G. Komen for the Cure Wants to  Ensure that Every Woman Counts And YOU Can Help!

Help Us Identify Survivors Who Have Fallen Through the Cracks in Getting Treatment!

Komen for the Cure, California Affiliates, are actively lobbying to sustain funding for the Every Woman Counts to ensure underserved women have access to screening and early detection of breast cancer.  To be successful, we need to demonstrate the need for this important change.

How Can You Help?
We are collecting stories from survivors who have fallen through the cracks of California’s breast health system.

Do you know a breast cancer survivor whose cancer was detected by a facility that did not receive federal funding and had trouble receiving treatment for her cancer? If so, please encourage her to share her story with us.  We are specifically looking for the following information:

1. When and where was the cancer diagnosed?
2. Was the person advised of their treatment options?
3. What stage was the cancer when detected? 
4. When did the survivor begin to receive treatment?
5. What stage was the cancer when treatment began?
6. How has this affected their lives—physically, financially, emotionally?

What will Komen do with these stories? To help sustain funding, we will need to share stories of challenges women face in receiving or paying for treatment to demonstrate the need for the funding.  We need to show that there are indeed survivors who are falling through the cracks when they are uninsured or underinsured and can’t afford screening for breast cancer.

Those individuals who would prefer not to reveal their identity in telling their story are welcome to use a fictitious name.

If you know a woman who has had challenges in obtaining financial assistance for treatment of breast cancer and she is interested in sharing her story so other women don’t experience the same barriers, please email Jamie Ledezma, Komen Central Valley Affiliate at jamie.ledezma@komencentralvalley.org.