'Breast Bus' mobilizes the mission
By Tom Meade
The Gloria Gemma Mobile Resource & Wellness Center, nicknamed
the Breast Bus, gets custom detailing from Shawn Gilheeney and
Julie O'Rourke, of Maine, at a Pawtucket garage. The RV is used to
spread news about breast cancer prevention, screening and
treatment to the community.
The Providence Journal / Kris Craig
The Breast Bus is on a roll. The shockingly pink recreational vehicle is officially called the Gloria Gemma Mobile Resource & Wellness Center, but Breast Bus is the name that's sticking with the staff of the Gloria Gemma Breast Cancer Resource Foundation.
"It's about so much more than breast cancer," said Maureen A. DiPiero, community outreach coordinator for the foundation based in Pawtucket. "It's about nutrition, mind-body-spirit enrichment, healing arts, education …"
Since its roll-out at the Red Tent Event for women in February, DiPiero has been taking the RV to colleges, high schools, community centers and hospitals to spread the word about breast health. She is planning to visit churches in underserved communities, too.
"It's our way of getting out of the office and into the community," said Gary Colvino, the foundation's director of development.
DiPiero tells a story about speaking to a group of high school students in Central Falls. The talk was meant for girls, but some boys also attended. DiPiero talked about a lot of things that day, including Rhode Island's screening programs for women who cannot afford mammograms to find breast cancer or Pap tests to look for cervical cancer.
A few weeks after the talk, she received a note from one of the boys. "I want to thank you for saving my grandmother's life," he wrote. "I told her about what you said, and she went for her first mammogram. It showed cancer in one of her breasts, but it was early. Thank you."
"I wrote him back to say that he had saved his grandmother's life. I didn't," DiPiero said. "That young man had taken the message home."
The Gloria Gemma Breast Cancer Resource Foundation was established in 2004 by the children of Gloria Gemma in memory their mother after breast cancer took her life. From the start, the foundation's mission has been "to raise breast cancer awareness, increase breast-health education, and generate funding for critical breast-health programs that are in desperate need of being brought to fruition."
The Breast Bus mobilizes that mission.
Donated by a benefactor, the RV has been customized to feel more like a living room than an institutional educational vehicle, said Colvino. Guests won't find a lot of brochures in there, DiPiero said.
The bus has a private examining room that also can be used for massage, reiki, or other healing arts.
The bus is open to everyone, including men who want to talk about cancer of the breast or any other form of the disease.
"Cancer is cancer," DiPiero said. "If someone wants to talk, we'll listen and try to help."
More information about the Gloria Gemma Breast Cancer Resource Foundation is available online at gloriagemma.org or by calling
(401) 861-4376.
Visit the Breast Bus
Visit the Mobile Resource & Wellness Center at the Northern Rhode Island YWCA's Health Fair, Saturday, April 30, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Elks Lodge in Woonsocket.
Share coffee and conversation with Isabel Storey when the Breast Bus visits a monthly drop-in support group at South County Hospital in South Kingstown, Monday, May 16, from 10 to 11:30 a.m.
tmeade@projo.com
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