As someone affected by breast cancer, Yulanda Tomlin-Watson is part of a team no one chooses to join. In 1998, the disease took her mother, the nucleus of her extended family.
In her honor, Tomlin-Watson started a team the next year that friends and relatives happily joined. “JoAnn’s Jewels,” named after the woman they lost, has participated in the Komen St. Louis Race for the Cure every year since.
“My mom was the heart of our family,” Tomlin-Watson said. “She drew everyone together. That was just her spirit.”
Tomlin-Watson, an asthma coach at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, will continue the tradition June 15, when she joins the Siteman Cancer Center for the 15th Annual Komen St. Louis Race for the Cure in downtown St. Louis.
“Breast cancer is going to affect you some way – you, someone you know,” said Tomlin-Watson, whose group is a Siteman subteam. “We need to do what we can and to be more aware.”
Since 1998, when the Komen St. Louis Race for the Cure began, Susan G. Komen has awarded about $28 million for outreach, education, screening and research programs at Washington University Medical Center, said Susan Kraenzle, RN. She is manager of the Joanne Knight Breast Health Center at the Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine.
“It moves me to see our city turns out the way it does,” Kraenzle said. “I lost a sister to breast cancer, and I wish she were here to see this and know people are fighting for her and her kids.”
The JoAnn’s Jewels team, shown above, takes part in the Komen St. Louis Race for the Cure each year. Yulanda Tomlin-Watson, back row center, an asthma coach at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, lost her mother to breast cancer.
Of the net proceeds raised locally, up to 75 percent stays in St. Louis to help Siteman Cancer Center and other organizations provide breast cancer education, screening and treatment programs. For example, Komen funds allow Siteman to provide free mammograms to more than 3,200 underserved, low-income women in the area.
“Komen’s help is essential in Siteman’s outreach efforts, and without them we simply would not be able to provide screening to the uninsured to the levels they have established,” Kraenzle said.
Research grants are another important part of Race for the Cure. Money raised nationally at the events made possible the more than $12 million in Promise Grants that Komen has awarded Washington University researchers at Siteman Cancer Center since 2011.
Race for the Cure also provides an excellent opportunity to teach high school students about possible careers in health care and about health in general, said Jennifer Irvin, a school-community health educator at BJC School Outreach & Youth Development.
She too organizes a Siteman subteam that has walked for the past 11 years. Members, including Irvin’s husband and children and students she teaches, also volunteer to hand out race T-shirts and to work at Siteman’s education booth. Participating gave one student the knowledge to perform a breast self-exam that detected a lump. It turned out to be benign, but the 18-year-old needed surgery.
“Today it could be someone else, but tomorrow it could be you,” said Irvin, whose oldest daughter will return from college in Atlanta for the St. Louis race. “I think it’s important to make a difference and to strive for a cure.”
As for Tomlin-Watson, she now hosts the holiday dinners her mother once did. The Komen St. Louis Race for the Cure has become a family tradition, too. Members of JoAnn’s Jewels carry fans bearing an image of the smiling matriarch. During the walk, they reminisce about the times they shared with her.
So many families have been affected by breast cancer, a point Tomlin-Watson recognizes every Race for the Cure when she stops at a particular vantage point along the route. From there, she sees the tens of thousands of other people walking, running and remembering alongside her.
“It’s just a humbling sight to see,” she said. “You see all these people coming together for this one cause.”
Those who join the Siteman team for the 5K run or walk will receive two T-shirts – a Komen St. Louis Race for the Cure shirt and a specially designed Siteman team shirt. Registrants who sign up online also are entered into a drawing for one of two Kindle Fire tablets and will receive a one-year subscription to SELF magazine or GQ magazine. The deadline for registering online is midnight May 28. For more information, visit this link.