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CURE
Magazine FEATURE STORY
Building Futures
BY BEATRIZ TERRAZAS
Breast
cancer survivors find a constructive outlet for their
altruism.
On a humid May morning in Texas, the Rev. Sheron Patterson,
DMin, stands on the porch of a tidy red-brick home.
The front lawn boasts new sod, and the inside smells
of fresh paint and wood. Here in a southern Dallas subdivision,
several Habitat for Humanity homes are under construction.
But the senior pastor of Highland Hills United Methodist
Church is helping dedicate this house—one built
by cancer survivors she recruited, as well as their
friends and families.
"This is a work of the Lord,” Patterson says
of Breast Cancer Builds, the fledgling program she founded
to enlist breast cancer survivors to build Habitat homes.
“Showing up early in the rain, in the cold. Hammering,
sawing, nailing, hitting our fingers, almost slicing
our hands. Truly, God is amazing.”
Patterson conceived Breast Cancer Builds in 2007 while
recovering from a double mastectomy. Breast cancer survivors,
grateful and ready to help others, are proof, she says,
that “there is life after breast cancer, and it
can be better and sweeter than it was before.”
Allied with the Habitat for Humanity ministry of another
local church, Patterson reached out through local media
and her own website, asking for 200 volunteers to “pay
forward” fruits of their survival.
Bubbling with joy, laughter, and love for other women
they didn’t even know, they came. From as close
by as Dallas and as far as suburbs an hour away, they
came. For eight consecutive Saturdays beginning this
past March, they came.
Photos by Beatriz Terrazas.
Allegra
Dowdle (in black shirt), house leader on the project
for Dallas Area Habitat for Humanity, begins the day
with a safety discussion for the breast cancer volunteers
who have arrived.
Survivor Candy Sheehan, 53, arrived the first day clad
in jeans, boots, and sunglasses, and relishing the idea
of building a home for a deserving family.
“During my treatments … I was on the receiving
end of so much support and blessings and meals and everything,
that it was really good for me to give back,”
Sheehan says.
For community activists like her, who are involved in
a variety of projects, much of the work focuses on funding
and policies, she says. “This is a thing—you
actually build it, you can touch it and feel it. It’s
encouraging that life will continue in this place that
we are building, and will become someone’s home.
That’s a strong message.”
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The
pledge has four parts. 