Part of PECaD’s mission involves creating and maintaining community partnerships in the St. Louis region to help educate and increase awareness in order to reduce cancer disparities. A strong and lasting community partnership between PECaD and The Breakfast Club has been in place since 2006. PECaD would like to highlight The Breakfast Club’s many accomplishments to reduce breast cancer in African-American women in St. Louis.
The Breakfast Club was founded in 1997 with the mission of increasing the rates of mammography screening, and breast self-awareness among low-income uninsured and underinsured North St. Louis City and North St. Louis County African-American women through education, awareness, resources and support.
Each month, The Breakfast Club meets on Saturday mornings at the Centennial Christian Church to discuss breast health issues. The Breakfast Club also started the Breast Health Buddy program, which offers one-on-one support to women with newly diagnosed breast cancer a buddy to help navigate the emotions, fears and lifestyle changes with breast cancer. The Faith on the Move Program, a collaboration between Siteman Cancer Center, Missouri Baptist Breast Center and Mercy Breast Center, provides mammography vans to give free mammograms to women who are uninsured and underinsured. The program serves women who live in North St. Louis City and County, where the incidence of late stage breast cancer is higher, and offers mammography screening through 22 churches and Saint Louis University. Additionally, The Breakfast Club provides educational seminars, screenings at local churches, and comfort boxes to those undergoing breast cancer treatment. Learn more about their programs and events online.
Two additional programs, The Breakfast Club Brothers and Breakfast Club Kids, began as a way to offer support and services to family members and spouses of women undergoing breast cancer treatment, or living as a breast cancer survivor. Semi-annual supports groups and seminars are available through these two spinoff groups.
“Through this program, [The Breakfast Club] hopes to decrease the number of women in the target population appearing with late stage breast cancer,” said Sherrill Jackson, RN, and President of The Breakfast Club. “The collaboration with PECaD as a member of the board, has allowed networking, sharing of information and education, resources and raising awareness of community needs of the target population.”
PECaD applauds the efforts of The Breakfast Club to help reduce cancer disparities in St. Louis and lessen the cancer burden for women and their families. By helping women access healthcare and screenings in St. Louis, providing educational information and emotional support, The Breakfast Club has been an instrumental and model organization in the fight against breast cancer.
For more information on The Breakfast Club, please visit their website or call 314-972-8883.