When Maria Gemma officially stepped from behind the desk as property manager of her family’s real estate business in 2009, she firmly planted her feet in front of an issue that had grown out of personal grief into a very public passion.
That’s when Gemma became a full-time employee and executive director of the Gloria Gemma Breast Cancer Resource Foundation, a nearly eight-year effort that has thrust the issues associated with the third-leading cause of death from cancer in Rhode Island further into the national spotlight.
Growing slowly at first, but steadily, the Pawtucket-based foundation has generated millions of dollars in donations that all go back into local efforts. In 2010, for the first time, the foundation hit the million-dollar mark, generating $1.2 million in donations.
The foundation started in 2004 as a small, volunteer effort by her brother two years after the death of their mother, Gloria Gemma, who died of the disease at the age of 70. The late-stage cancer was diagnosed less than a year earlier.
It’s “not really something that should happen,’’ said Maria Gemma, 56, of the late detection of her mother’s cancer. “It’s difficult, it doesn’t matter what age you are.”
The foundation’s local effort has become a statewide resource and has drawn national and international attention for its annual Flames of Hope: A Celebration of Life. The event is the largest Breast Cancer Awareness event in the Northeast, Maria Gemma said.
Gloria Gemma was the mother of nine and wife of Larry Gemma, owner of the Rhode Island business Gem Plumbing & Heating Service Inc., as well as Gem Property Management.
“People are not cognizant of the magnitude of how cancer touches the community,” Maria Gemma said.
Marie McCormick, nurse practitioner and breast-care coordinator for South County Hospital, said the foundation was instrumental in getting the hospital’s own program off the ground.
A few years ago, the hospital had some breast-care management but nothing compared to what it has available for patients today, she said.
The Gemma resource center now has another partner – sort of a traveling outreach effort – via a pink bus. The center bought the Hope Bus in 2010. It travels throughout the state providing educational information, informal support meetings, one-on-one consultations, educational classes and a multi-use healing room.
In the first three months of use, the Hope Bus served 1,000 people. It was acquired after a donation from a family who wanted to recognize a loved one that had passed, a wife and mom.
Perhaps one of the most important aspects of their program is awareness, and that awareness may have even saved her sister’s life. Gloria, with the same name as their mother, was diagnosed with cancer four years ago after she discovered a lump that a mammogram had not detected.
“Gloria knew enough to go back and say, ‘This just doesn’t feel right. Check it again,’ ” Maria Gemma said.
That’s a common story, she said.
“We’re going at it from all angles and the more we do it the more passionate we become,” she said. “How can you not be out there really grassroots helping our state, when one in six women will be diagnosed with breast cancer?” •
