Yash Roy Photo
Sisters' Journey displays copies of each of their 25 past calendars at Saturday's event..
A group of Black female breast cancer survivors gathered at the place where they first united a quarter century ago in order to kick off a neighborhood institution’s second century.
The group is called Sisters’ Journey. More than 100 people joined its members Saturday evening at the Dixwell Q House for a kick-off event for the reborn community center’s centennial year celebrations.
Twenty-five years ago, the organization created for Black women with breast cancer to find community and support unveiled its first fundraising calendar at the old Q House.
The group had 25 members at first. It now has hundreds who advocate for Black women at the state level.
Sisters’ Journey is intertwined with the mission of the Q House, a community center that has brought together and strengthened the Black community for a century, said Journey President Dawn White-Gracey.
“We’re here because this is where we started, and we want to commemorate our community and show the past, present, and future of both the Q House and Sister’s Journey,” she said.
“Family and friends can empathize, but they don’t know what it really feels like to have cancer,” said Sisters’ Journey board member and two-time breast cancer survivor Eileen Esdaile. “This place is where I and so many of us found our community.”
The group is now turning its attention to helping younger Black women identify if they might have breast cancer, especially since the first mammogram to detect cancer is normally at age 40 even though the number of younger women, especially Black women, who have been diagnosed with cancer has increased significantly according to Esdaile.
Poole with her daughter at the event.
The Q House isn’t just a place where Sisters’ Journey first launched. It’s also a place where some of its supporters found love and their life partners: Joyce Poole worked at the Q House and helped set up the Sisters’ Journeys event when the group formed and also found her husband working at the Q House. Now, she and her daughter make sure to attend as many Sisters’ Journey events as possible to show their support.
“We always come to Sisters’ Journeys events because we’ve had more than a few family members and friends survive breast cancer,” Poole said. “This being in the Q House is also special for me because I found my husband at a Q House event.”
Saturday’s event was cohosted by 40+ Double Dutch, a newly formed organization in New Haven that celebrated its one-year anniversary alongside Sisters’ Journey’s 25th-anniversary celebration.
“We wanted to have both groups here to fit into the whole past, present, and future moments,” said Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison, a driving force behind the recent rebuilding of the Q House and chair of the committee organizing centennial events through 2024. “The history of the Q House, the present of the new house and Sisters’ Journey’s strength, and groups like 40+ Double Dutch help show us what the future will be like.”
40+ Double Dutch Captain Taneha Edwards said she founded the club because she wanted a space for her and other Black women in the community to be active and give back. They meet at the Q House every Saturday.
Next month will feature a community day at the Q House on Feb. 24 from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and a school learning day on Feb. 27 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
