Meet Sylvia Dunnavant Hines of Celebrating Life Foundation in Dallas

Today we’d like to introduce you to Sylvia Dunnavant Hines.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Sylvia. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
My journey with breast cancer began when my aunt was given a terminal diagnosis for breast cancer. She has survived the disease for eight years and they she had a reoccurrence. At this point, the doctors stated there was nothing else they could do. I began to speak to family members, friends and people in the community about breast cancer. To my surprise, everyone that I spoke with knew someone that had breast cancer.

This was over two decades ago. In the African American Community, we were not addressing breast cancer. One woman told me that she could tell her pastor that anything, but she could not tell him that she had breast cancer. As the result of the disparity. I decided to combine my writing skills and my photography skills to do a book targeting African American Women and Breast Cancer Awareness. My book was called, “Celebrating Life: African American Women Speak out About Breast Cancer.” The book highlighted the testimonies of 62 breast cancer survivors from 16 states.

When the book was released 61 of the subjects were honored in Dallas at an opening luncheon. It was one of the most powerful things that I have experienced in my life. Ester Rolle and Ruby Dee spoke at the luncheon. This was followed by a concert with Cee Cee Winans and Vanessa Bell Armstrong. There was also a photo exhibit of all 62 subjects on display in the gallery at The Black Academy of Arts and Letter (BAAL).

This was the birthing of the Celebrating Life Foundation. The Celebrating Life Foundation is a non-profit organization devoted to making cancer powerless by educating, encouraging and empowering women about the risks of breast cancer.

The organization is getting ready to celebrate 25 years of working with the community for breast cancer awareness. We have worked on a 5-city health tour the General Mills. We have helped to implement a 17-city tour with Pharmacia Pharmaceutical Company. We have hosted luncheons honoring breast cancer survivors featuring Richard Roundtree, Shirley Caesar and Daphne Maxwell Reid.

One of our major objectives is to help create health communities. 18 years ago, we started the Sister to Sister Fitness Festival. For the last ten years, the event has been held in Cedar Hill, Texas. This is a 5k/Walk Run and Fitness Festival. The event offers mammograms to those that don’t have insurance and are over the age of 40. There are also a variety of other health screening and wellness vendors.

Recently we have partnered with Donna Richardson Joyner to states a walking club. The walk club is called Pink Shoe Strings: Lace-Up for Good Health. Recent research as shown that postmenopausal women who were very active or walked for at least seven hours a week had a reduced risk for breast cancer. This year was our first year to celebrate, “Chemo Day.” This is a day we created during the month of June to celebrate those going through chemotherapy. We partnered with Making Chemo Bearable to provide bears, lotion, lip balm, hand sanitizers and gift cards to over 300 people that were going through chemotherapy.

On December 21st we will be hosting our Hope of the Holidays event to help provide gifts for those that are going through treatment over the Christmas Holidays. We also have a single mom who is a breast cancer survivor with three daughters that we will be adopting for the holiday season.

Over the 20 years, a lot of things have changed regarding breast cancer. The greatest change has been the fact that African American Women are no longer afraid to say that they are a breast cancer survivor. Yet the one thing that have not changed. According to the American Cancer Society, “Though Black women get breast cancer at a slightly lower incidence rate (3%) than white women, black women are 42% more like to die of breast cancer than white women.”

This number means that there is still work to do to help bridge the gap in our community. It is my objective to keep sounding the horn and help bridge the health disparity gap in order to decrease the mortality rate from breast cancer in our community.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
I don’t think that anything worth having comes without a challenge. I think one of the greatest challenges in working with breast cancer in the last two decades has been breaking through cultural barriers. I have spoken to women who have stated it was easy to ignore the impact that breast cancer was making in our community because the message did not look like them.

It has been my goal through the Celebrating Life Foundation to help to create a culturally sensitive message. Five years ago, we began to do a Breast Cancer Survivors Calendar. The calendar not only features breast cancer survivors it also has several health tips and vital information for women about breast cancer.

We have also tried to step outside the box to help bring awareness to our community. This has included concerns, health talks in local grocery stores and photo exhibits featuring breast cancer survivors.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. We are constantly looking at new ways to present our message and help to make an impact in the health of our community.

Please tell us about Celebrating Life Foundation.
The Celebrating Life Foundation (CLF) was established on May 3, 1995, by Sylvia Dunnavant Hines. CLF is one of the leading foundations in the nation that promote breast cancer awareness specifically targeting African American women, women of color, and medically underserved women.

CLF has initiated and participated in seminars, workshops, forums, health fairs, and other programs and activities related to breast cancer awareness and education both locally and nationally.

The Celebrating Life Foundation Partnered with the American Cancer Society to reach over 4,000 churches for a national Super Sunday Campaign.

The organization has held luncheons to educate the community about breast cancer that have featured motivational speaker, Les Brown, gospel recording artist, Shirley Caesar, and actor, Richard Roundtree.

One of the goals of CLF is to help encourage, empower and enrich the lives of those that have been touched by breast cancer. We have done this through retreats, health fairs, symposiums, and various partnerships. It is also our desire to increase the self-esteem of those that have had to deal with cancer. This has been done by partnering with groups and hosting empowerment workshops. We also developed an annual calendar featuring breast cancer survivors.

CLF also sponsored breast cancer survivors to participate in 141st Kentucky Oaks Breast and Ovarian Cancer Parade, which is held the day before the Kentucky Derby.

CLF has host a photo exhibit of breast cancer survivors that was featured at the African American Museum and has traveled around the country.

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
The major lesson that I have learned over the last 20 years, is that you can never be afraid to take the first step. When I wrote my book “Celebrating Life: African American Women: Speak Out About Breast Cancer” I was told that it couldn’t be done. The idea of bringing all the survivors to Dallas was also an obstacle that seemed impossible. If you can dream it, you can achieve it.

I believe that I am a living witness that the road to success starts one step at a time.

Pricing:

• 2020 Breast Cancer Awareness Calendar $15
• Sister to Sister Fitness Festival – Oct, 3, 2020 $25

Contact Info:

• Address: 1121 E. Spring Creek Parkway, Ste 110-118
  Plano, Texas 75074
• Website: www.celebratinglife.org
• Phone: 214-475-006`
• Email: clf@celebratinglife.org
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Celebrating-Life-Foundation-111989508847058/

Image Credit:
Breast Cancer Survivor Angela Richards is present with a quilt from the Celebrating Life Foundation.
Celebrating Life Foundation Board Members,: Odell Lee, Nina Graham, Kim McBrayer, Sylvia Dunnavant Hines, Jacqueline Stewart and Lynette Fletcher.
Karla Baptiste is the winner of the Celebrating Life Foundation Breast Cancer Survivor of the Year Award 2019.
Vickie Hicks and Karla Baptiste participated in the Kentucky Oaks Breast and Ovarian Cancer Parade.
Parkland Oncology was on the nine oncology and infusion centers to participate in Chem Day sponsored by the Celebrating Life Foundation.

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