Daily News of Kingsport TN

310 East Sullivan Street, Kingsport, TN 37660
(423) 246-4800 (fax) 423-247-2502

The Tri-Cities Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure hosted a Volunteer Reception recently to recognize outstanding volunteers and thank many others while recruiting still more volunteers to help seek the cure.
Kathi Baty, volunteer and cancer survivor, was honored as Volunteer of the Year at the Tri-Cities Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure Volunteer Reception.
Baty shared a portion of her breast cancer survivor story with the135 people gathered for the awards ceremony and reception at the East Tennessee State University & General Shale Brick Natural History Museum in Gray, Tenn. Five years ago Baty was diagnosed with HER 2 Positive cancer followed by two and a half years of treatment and surgeries, including participation in a clinical trial for a new drug that proved almost miraculously successful with her type of cancer.
“I feel so fortunate,” she said, noting that as additional information about this drug, Herceptin, was made public, she discovered that a Komen grant had actually funded this drug’s development. “Komen had already touched my life in this miraculous way without my even knowing they were there,” she said. “Komen is real, active, and doing wonderful things.”
Baty serves on the Board of Directors for the Tri-Cities Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, and she has shared her time as a speaker and served in many areas during the local affiliate’s initial two years of service to a 22-county area in northeast Tennessee, southwest Virginia, and Western North Carolina.
Other volunteer honors went to Jamie Arrowsmith, for outstanding work with volunteers on the Tri-Cities Affiliate Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure; Ellen Finney, for outstanding work with administration of the donor and race database; and Linda Sluss, for outstanding educational efforts.
Executive Director Cheryl Youland noted that the local affiliate is the result of a joint partnership by both the Mountain States Health Alliance Foundation and the Wellmont Foundation. Together, they initiated the application and research that culminated in establishing this outreach in our region. Because of their efforts and the success of rolling the area’s former Pink Ribbon Run into today’s Komen Race for the Cure, over $365,000 has been raised and distributed in grants for breast health and breast cancer programs within the local service area in two short years.
Dr. Beth Lawson, a breast cancer surgeon with the Lawson Surgical Group in Johnson City, spoke about how the now-global Susan G. Komen for the Cure movement began 25 years ago as a frustrated sister stood by while her sister died of breast cancer at the age of 36.
“The tragedy of Susan G. Komen’s death provided her sister, Nancy G. Brinker, with the wonderful vision that became Susan G. Komen for the Cure,” Lawson said. “She was a wonderful organizer and speaker—she knew what to do and did it from lobbying legislative bodies to raising funds to developing educational tools, and organizing and training groups of people to help.”
“You may have heard that ‘it takes a village’,” she continued, “but I think it takes a sisterhood. Some things—praying, sewing hats, knitting flip-flops, taking a meal, offering rides to treatments, etc.—may seem small to you, but these moments, these gestures are so treasured by patients and their families. Investing our time, talent, and dedication as we fight this fight together is one of the largest challenges we’ll see in our lifetime—and this fight against breast cancer cannot be won without the help of everyone.”
People interested in joining the local efforts of Komen for the Cure are invited to visit and sign up through the website, www.KomenTriCities.org or to call Cheryl Youland at 423-354-0111 or chyouland@gmail.com . Two ways that everyone can help: sign up for the new Tennessee Komen license tag and plan to run, walk, or volunteer to help with the 3rd
Annual Tri-Cities Komen Race for the Cure, a regional event, to be held October 26, 2008 in Kingsport’s Memorial Park.