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Nonprofit helps women in need
By MELISSA LATTMAN
| Article published on Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2009 |
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Madeira Beach – Born and raised in Madeira Beach, 46-year-old Alisa Savoretti said she had the greatest childhood ever one block from the Gulf of Mexico.
At age 4 she started her lifelong love of dance with ballet and tap dancing lessons. “What kid doesn’t like to twirl?” she asked.
College and dancing, including shows in Las Vegas and Europe, took her away from home after high school. Preparing to launch a new business brought her back home.
However, that entrepreneurial endeavor was put on hold when she discovered a lump in her right breast in 2001. It was the beginning of a lengthy ordeal that resulted in a mastectomy and successful chemotherapy, despite her being uninsured as a self-employed entrepreneur.
While Pinellas County Social Services picked up the cost of her medical attention, there was no help for reconstructive surgery.
That’s what led Savoretti to form My Hope Chest, a nonprofit organization dedicated to paying for reconstructive surgery for uninsured breast cancer patients.
There was “no help to get the breasts back. It is the plight of every woman in America who doesn’t have insurance,” Savoretti said.
Just five months after finishing chemotherapy Savoretti went back to Las Vegas to dance as a show girl. She padded her costume so there was no way the audience would know she was missing one breast.
Through dancing she was back under a group health insurance plan, which paid for her reconstruction surgeries. Her own experience of going more than two years with one breast led her to start My Hope Chest in 2003 to help other women in her situation.
“(Breast reconstruction) addresses a woman’s mental being as much as her physical being. It’s hard enough to battle cancer that left you disfigured and deformed. Having no breasts is like psychological warfare. The longer you live with it the more difficult it is to return to normal,” Savoretti said.
After refinancing her Las Vegas home three times in five years to help fund My Hope Chest, Savoretti moved back to the Tampa Bay area this spring. She is hoping the Tampa Bay community will be the angels that will make this happen. She has women on the waiting list locally wanting the surgeries, Savoretti said.
“This isn’t only about women. Men should get involved. It impacts their wives, mothers, sisters and daughters,” Savoretti said. “I am optimistic to see what the wonderful people in my hometown would be willing to do to help sustain My Hope Chest as long as it is needed.”
Where some breast cancer charities may focus on finding a cure and early detection My Hope Chest focuses on helping women who desire to have breast reconstruction. It costs approximately $10,000 for reconstruction using Medicaid rates, Savoretti said.
“We just have to raise awareness this is an unmet need. (We are) not saying to not give to research. (We are asking people to) embrace My Hope Chest and the work to heal women completely,” she said.
Breast reconstruction is a series of plastic surgery techniques to make a near normal shape and appearance after a mastectomy. According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, specialists performed 79,000 breast reconstruction procedures in 2008. According to the ASPS Web site, nearly 70 percent of the women who are eligible for breast reconstruction are not informed of the reconstructive options available to them.
“For those who desire, breast reconstruction is the final step in breast cancer treatment restoring a woman’s confidence, self-esteem and self-worth … as long as breast cancer exists My Hope Chest needs to exist,” Savoretti said.
The American Cancer Society estimates in 2009 there will be 192,370 new cases of breast cancer in women and 1,910 new cases in men. About 40,170 women and 440 men die from breast cancer each year, according to the American Cancer Society.
As of 2008 there were about 2.5 million women in the United States who have survived breast cancer. Breast cancer occurs in one out of eight women in this country according to Breastcancer.org
There are many ways to help My Hope Chest. The organization needs donations toward surgeries, angel investors to sustain the operations, doctors willing to help and volunteers to run events.
For information, e-mail info@myhopechest.org or call 642-4243.
Tax deductible donations to the organization are accepted online at www.myhopechest.org or by mail at P.O. Box 3081, Seminole, FL 33775.
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Article published on Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2009
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