Women’s faces peer down from the walls of the Beyond Boobs! office in Williamsburg.
Young women, old women. White women, black women, Latino women. Mothers, daughters, aunts, grandmothers, cousins. Best friends, old friends.
They all share one thing in common: breast cancer.
Many of the women whose eyes pierce from the pages of the breast health organization’s calendar – going on eight years in production – have gone on to lead happy and healthy lives.
Nine women have lost their battle with the disease.
Mary Beth Gibson, one of the co-founders and the executive director of Beyond Boobs!, recounts their names sadly. Each, she said, had a different story to tell.
Although the women are no longer living, their spirits are immortalized in the copies of A Calendar to Live By, created annually by the nonprofit to spread awareness and incite action for breast health in both women and men across the community. Shooting for the most recent calendar wrapped up this week.
Back in 2006, it was the idea of the calendar that sparked the formation of Beyond Boobs! as a multi-faceted breast health organization.
Gibson and co-founder René Bowditch — who now serves as board president — had formed a small support group for young women with breast cancer.
They were angry. They were witnessing or hearing cases of doctors dismissing the concerns of women, telling them they were too young to have the disease. Women were being diagnosed late, and many were dying.
For those who had a diagnosis, coping with breast cancer as a young woman — Gibson had three children while contending with chemotherapy, surgery and radiation — made an already isolating disease even more isolating. Most women with breast cancer were older and faced a different set of challenges, and husbands could be supportive but not empathize with the fears of facing a double mastectomy.
“I had a lot of friends who supported me through it, but no one who had really experienced breast cancer,” Gibson said.
At one support group meeting, an attendee tossed out the idea of a calendar to share the stories of young survivors, to empower those staring down a frightening fate and to educate others to reduce their risk.
They decided to give a it a go, and in the same meeting formed as a nonprofit and named themselves. Searching for a moniker that fit the sassy group, they settled on Beyond Boobs!, with the aim to live life with an exclamation point.
“It launched us, for sure,” Bowditch said of the calendar, adding if it were not for the project she believes they would have stayed as a small support group. More than a closed circle of voices, the calendar gave them a platform to share the information they wish they had known before being diagnosed.
Gibson and Bowditch, now eight- and 12-year survivors respectively, both modeled in the first calendar, but had to beg others to get in front of the camera.
“For some women they’re really stepping out of their comfort zone,” Gibson said. “It’s healing, it’s affirming and it’s personal growth.”
Since that first calendar, women have started clamoring to participate. Beyond Boobs! now has an application process for models, which they share through a distribution list that had grown to about 5,000 people stretching out of Williamsburg and as far as Florida.
Now they get around 40 applications a year, where women submit their health information and why they want to be a part of the project. Beyond Boobs! looks for a diversity of age, background, type of cancer and treatment to be represented in each year’s calendar.
Gibson and Bowditch also try to find at least one longtime survivor each year to give hope to young women. One year’s calendar featured a 50-year survivor who had been diagnosed in her 30s, who posed with her granddaughter.
Any woman who wishes can be included in a group shot for October’s page. While October is the month dedicated to breast cancer awareness, Gibson stressed women are being diagnosed every day of the year.
Models for the remaining 11 months receive the full star treatment. They get made up for a photo shoot — done by many local professionals over the years with the upcoming issue shot by Julie Harberts with Purple Owl Photography in Poquoson — as well as a video interview that airs at the reveal gala in the fall. For the event, they have another glam experience before making an entrance on a pink carpet as the stars of the evening.
The ordeal is one the support programs Beyond Boobs! has for women living with cancer but the product, a calendar printed and seen by thousands, is a vital education tool as well.
“It’s as critical for the person who doesn’t have breast cancer to pick it up and read it,” Gibson said.
They have started to add a breast health guide as a pullout piece of the calendar, in addition to the information on screenings, risk factors and support sprinkled throughout.
Bowditch said it is imperative women trust their intuition when it comes to breast health. Many of the members of Beyond Boobs! knew something was wrong long before a doctor made a concrete diagnosis.
That was the case for Janell Nichols, who was diagnosed with cancer when she was 35. The Stonehouse Elementary School teacher had recently watched a television program about cancer in young women and started to be suspicious.
While she did not have a lump or much pain, she was grateful her doctor listened to her concerns and ordered a mammogram and biopsy, which found Ductal Carcinoma In Situ, a cancer found in the milk duct.
Nichols had a mastectomy and reconstruction, but no chemotherapy or radiation because the cancer was caught early enough.
If it were not for seeing the television program, and listening to her body, she is not sure what might have happened.
Nichols found Beyond Boobs! after she and her family moved to Williamsburg in 1996. She quickly became passionate about their mission of supporting young women with breast cancer and started volunteering during her summer vacation in their office, editing text, cutting paper — anything they needed to accomplish their goals.
“They provide such a wonderful service to these young women – something that I didn’t have,” Nichols said.
She visits with support groups and shares her story, and hopes as a 25-year survivor she can be one of the inspirations for the younger generation.
Gibson encouraged Nichols to apply to be a calendar model, and she was eager to share her story with an even broader audience.
“I want to be able to send the message out to the younger women that you can survive this,” she said.
Nichols was a bit nervous to appear in this year’s calendar, as she says she tends to blink in photographs. But she brought her daughter with her to the photo shoot and enjoyed the pageantry of the experience.
“It’s like being a debutante at 60 years old,” she laughed.
While the chosen photograph remains closely guarded, even from Nichols — she does not even know yet which month she will represent — she did reveal that ducks played a role in the shoot. Their carefree attitude has always drawn her to the animals, which are big in her life on key chains and as part of décor.
She wanted to include her cherished 1984 Volkswagen van, but it would not fit in the studio.
Some calendars in the past have had a theme. Last year’s was “Double Exposure,” which used a layering of two images as a metaphor for the journey breast cancer patients undertake from the moment they are diagnosed. But Gibson said the women’s stories will tie this year’s calendar together.
Nichols was also eager to get involved with the calendar to support the Beyond Boobs! fundraising efforts. The calendar, with about 10,000 copies printed, provides about a quarter of the organization’s operating budget.
The models and the organization sell copies of the calendar for $20 with orders of three or more $10 each, but also seek sponsorships. Individuals can purchase a day – marked by a heart in memory of someone who died, or gift box for those still alive – to honor a loved one.
Over the years, Gibson and Bowditch have started to sell fewer calendars while giving them away in larger quantities. They now donate 80 percent of the copies to imaging centers, health clinics and locally underserved women.
The pair hopes breast cancer will someday be eradicated, but until then, they want to share their message with as many women as possible.
To learn more, visit the Beyond Boobs! website. To sponsor A Calendar to Live By, contact Gibson at 870-7758 or [email protected]. Calendars will first be made available at the organization’s eighth annual Pink Carpet Gala, scheduled for Sept. 20.
