- [Announcer] Support for this program is provided by the Weldon F. Osborne Foundation, the Schillhahn-Husky Foundation, and viewers like you.

Thank you.

- On today's show, we will feature two impactful nonprofits.

Both are dedicated to supporting those who are affected by cancer and the challenges it can bring.

We're stronger together Chattanooga, so stay tuned to learn more.

(playful music begins) (playful music ends) Welcome to "Chattanooga Stronger Together."

I'm Barbara Marter.

With us today is Keith Salmons, Founder and Executive Director of the Happy Shoes Project.

The organization was formed after his wife Sandy, was diagnosed with colon cancer.

After her death in April 2017, Keith continued lifting up other cancer patients as part of Sandy's legacy.

Keith, thank you so much for being here with us today.

And tell me Sandy's story.

- Sure, Barbara, thank you so much for the invitation to be here.

The Happy Shoes Project was founded, as you said, by my first wife, Sandy.

She was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer in August of 2015.

After a few weeks of going to treatment, one day I noticed her sitting in Nashville at the treatment center, taking a picture of her shoes.

And then she began to write, and I said, "What are you doing?"

She said, "I'm sharing a post on Facebook."

So she shared that post about those shoes, and she called 'em her "happy shoes of the day."

The post was personal, spiritual, and inspirational.

And she wrote about the style, the texture, the color of the shoes, and she posted it on Facebook, really.

And then people begin to love her writing.

It touched their heart.

They said, "You know, you're going through cancer, but your writings are so inspiring.

You've gotta write again."

So she began to write every time she went to treatment about those shoes.

And people begin to send her shoes.

And she wrote every time she went to treatment about her shoes, personal, spiritual, inspirational writings.

Yeah, the color, the texture, the style.

She captured it, "These are my happy shoes of the day."

And so as she began her journey going through treatment, she would write, and that's how she began to tell her story of going through happy shoes and people loved it.

They asked her to write and she continued to write.

Over the course of the next few months, she would go through treatments in different parts of the cancer and we'd see people in to the treatment center with the things that they needed for treatment.

And we would just feel sorry for them.

And sometimes we would go buy 'em a meal or we'd go get 'em something to... one lady came in one day with a Walmart bag.

It had holes in it, but she had all of her possessions that she needed for treatment that day, and they were kind of falling out of it, and so we helped her get something to put her things in and get her situated for her treatment.

And then sometimes we knew people, they were having trouble.

They didn't have anything to eat.

They would just bring a pack of crackers with them.

We'd go get 'em lunch or something like that.

So we knew the journey of going through treatment.

And Sandy would go through that next few months, and after 20 months and two days, Sandy would transition to heaven.

And we were left with a thought.

We were in the process of putting her writings into book form.

We'd ask her doctor, "Can we hand these to cancer patients and inspire them?"

Because if they didn't see her, they didn't see her post, they would not be able to reap the benefits of reading her inspiring writings.

One of the things that she wrote one day while she was writing is, "What do you do while you're walking through the process of healing...?

She said, "Keep walking by faith."

So in the next weeks after she died, family members would begin to encourage us, "You've gotta keep this going.

You've got to put this together."

So that became, that phrase, became our mission statement as we put together what is now the Happy Shoes Project.

And our mission statement is "Inspiring cancer patients to keep walking on their journey."

And now, five years later, we have a full blown 501(c)(3), public charity.

This year we have the potential to touch over 8,000 cancer patients right here in the Chattanooga area, giving them totes filled with items that'll help them through treatment.

And one of the reasons that we give 'em totes is that little lady that had that Walmart bag that day (voice breaking up)sometimes I choke up thinking about it.

But that little lady, things falling out of her, we thought we've gotta do something to help them.

And if we are gonna give her book away, I thought, "Well, why can't we give a a CD away?"

I do music.

So we began the process of recording a new CD and I put a CD of great inspirational music in there.

And I thought, "Well, if we're gonna have these two items, we've got to have something to put it in and it'll help those little ladies carry their stuff in," because everybody that goes to treatment has to take things with them.

You have your paperwork, you have your medicines, you have your little snacks that you have to take with you and something to keep warm, different items that we knew that they could use while going through treatment.

And so we began the process of putting that together, and now we have a full blown tote program that we work through the cancer centers.

And when cancer patients go through their orientation for treatment, the centers work with us and give them their totes.

- Aw, that is so amazing.

So what all is in a tote now?

- Well, the tote is the tote itself.

If you don't mind, I'll kinda show you - No, I'd love to see one.

what we have.

- Yeah.

We have the tote itself.

And then inside that tote is the book.

This is the book that we wrote - Um hm, let me see it.

with her writings in it.

It's got a picture of the shoes.

Every- - Aww.

- Yeah, every time she went to write, she captioned a picture of her shoes and then she posted it with the writing.

- I love this.

- The book is just absolutely incredible.

The writings, there's just little quotes and little things in there that just inspire people.

- Yeah.

- You know, and coming from someone who is going through the battle and fighting the fight of cancer, and see her faith.

- Yeah.

- To see the hope.

On the front of the book, we say "Inspirational writings to encourage hope, build faith, and, and share love."

- Yeah.

- And so that's what we do.

We share love and build people up and tell 'em, "You can keep walking on your journey through treatment.

We love you and there's a lot of people that care for you."

- That's true.

But now in the tote, I know you also provide them with not the actual shoes that they have to have, but you have a company - Right.

that they can go online and order their shoes and the shoes will be delivered to them.

- Yeah, we give them their own pair of happy shoes.

We have a voucher that is in every tote, and that voucher has instructions on it, and the hospital workers, when they go through their treatment, encourage 'em, say, "Get this voucher and follow those instructions.

Go to our website, fill out a small little form."

If something happens, they don't have access to a computer, then they can call the number to our office.

- [Barbara] Oh, okay.

- And we'll manually get their information, but we send them their very own pair of happy shoes.

- I love that.

- And then we have a volunteer team that we've assembled that help pack the totes, but they also deliver the shoes to their home.

And then we're able to be there with them to encourage them and to do different things that will help if we see needs that they may have.

We're able to help guide them and direct them to people that can help 'em with different needs.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

So there's a blanket.

- Yeah, we have a blanket that is in there that one of our sponsors helps us with.

And it's a really nice blanket.

- Yeah.

- They're not all necessarily blue, but those are really nice.

- Oh, they're very nice and soft too.

I like that.

- Very soft.

- And that is one of the things that we put in there.

We have compression socks.

Now, one of the things that we found, I met with lymphedema specialist, a physician here in town who trains doctors on lymphedema around the country, and we said, "If we would put these socks in our totes, we wanna make sure they're gonna be a benefit to 'em."

We're not just interested in giving them a sock to give 'em the socks, - Right.

but we wanna help 'em.

And so she looked at the compression.

She was able to go through and dissect the fabric and everything about it.

They're made with marina wool.

They keep your feet warm in the winter and cool in the summer.

- Aw.

They will not let your feet sweat and she said, "This is exactly what patients need if they're starting treatment because if they wear this compression sock, it can help avert or slow down lymphedema on the cancer patients."

And we have sponsors that help us raise the money to cover that part of fees.

- That's good, that's good.

Yeah.

- I noticed there's another tote bag down here in the floor.

- Yes, there is.

- Now in this tote, there's also puzzle books.

There's also ointments, there's mints, there's gum, there's other things, Kleenexes, things that they can use on their journey.

- Little necessities.

Everything is usable that is in there.

- Right, okay.

- And then we have a children's program.

I'm so excited about our children's program.

(chuckling) I thought Happy Shoes, from the moment that we started developing this, in the back of my mind, I knew that there was something for kids involved.

I didn't know what we could do, but eventually that kept stirring in my mind.

And I came up, let's write a book, an illustrated book, and let's put together a backpack program.

So yeah, we have now got our full fledged, kids program with our illustrated book.

It is fully color.

It is amazing all the way through, with little stories, and every story encourages kid, whatever situation in life they can do, that they can overcome.

And then we have a companion coloring book.

- Oh yeah, the coloring book.

I love that, yeah.

- The coloring book that goes with it.

And so we put that in the backpack.

They get crayons, they get items that will help the kids along with the little nice, bright colored backpack.

- Oh, that's cool.

- To help them on their journey.

- So let's not deviate, but let's move over a little bit to what doctors are you working with?

And hospitals, - we work with Memorial Hospital was the first one.

- Okay.

- And Dr. Boxer was so inspirational.

He heard our story.

Memorial asked us when they heard about early on, heard about what I wanted to do, they said, "Well, why don't you come and speak at our We Care Weekend?"

And I went and shared our story, and we gave totes away to the cancer patients, there were about 300 cancer patients and their family at this weekend event.

- Wow.

And I thought, "How can a man whose wife died of cancer go speak to cancer patients and encourage them?"

And you will not believe, I tear up again as I think about it, 300 people there.

And we were able to share our story of how I just felt like that my inspiration was to share how we start, how we were starting the Happy Shoes Project.

And I sing, so I was gonna sing two songs that night that the hospital had asked me to sing a couple songs as well.

So one of the songs was "Wind Beneath My Wings."

And I thought, How can "Wind Beneath My Wings" encourage these people?

And so I went on and spoke, and I still didn't have a grasp on how that song would work.

And when I got ready to introduce it, it dropped into my mind and spirit, share with them that they are the wind beneath your wings, and the reason why you're doing the project is to help them and inspire them.

And I did that and we sung it.

They were standing on their feet crying.

Then I sung the old hymn, "Great Is Thy Faithfulness," and I told them that was one of my wife's favorite songs, and I wanted to inspire them that no matter what kind of a religious background you are, atheist to Hindu to Christian, that there is someone who will be faithful to you, and I want you to know He'll be faithful.

He's been faithful to me, and He'll be faithful to you.

So that is kind of the backstory of how we came through getting into the hospital.

So the cancer centers here in the region of Chattanooga, and there's many, through all of those centers, we deliver the toted to the hospitals, and during their orientation, as I said previously, the nurses and the doctors have 'em there and they give them to the patients when they come in for orientation.

- Right.

In the last about 30, 45 seconds that we have remaining, are there volunteer opportunities that people can get, you know, involved with Happy Shoes?

- Absolutely.

And maybe our website would be available here on the program, happyshoes.org, and they can go there and sign up as a volunteer.

We have opportunities to help pack the totes, to help work in our warehouse, to help deliver the totes and to help deliver the shoes to cancer patients' homes.

So there are plenty of opportunities for people to get involved and to come on alongside us and help us.

Our corporate sponsors, we have several of those that help us along the way.

And we depend on individuals, nuts and bolts.

We're grassroots, we're on the ground here in Chattanooga region, and we're just inspiring people to keep walking on their journey through cancer.

- Through those happy shoes.

- Yes sir.

- I love it.

Thank you so much, Keith, for being here, and showing and sharing about Happy Shoes and Sandy's story and the legacy that's still living on.

- Thank you, Barbara.

- Up next, we'll have Cindy Pare, Executive Director of the MaryEllen Locher Scholarship Fund.

Stay with us.

We wanna know how you serve your community.

Send us photos or videos of you or your family volunteering and we may feature it on a future episode.

Email stronger@wtcitv.org or use #StrongerWTCI on social media.

Welcome back.

We're happy to have Cindy Pare with us today.

She's the Executive Director of the MaryEllen Locher Scholarship Fund at CHI Memorial Foundation.

This organization offers college scholarships for children who have either lost a parent to breast cancer or who have a parent who is a breast cancer survivor.

Welcome Cindy.

- Thank you so much.

- Yeah, thank you for being here with us.

So anybody here locally knows the MaryEllen story, but we have so many people that have moved in in the last five to seven years.

Tell us how did it get started?

- All right.

Well, MaryEllen Locher was a beloved news anchor at WTVC News Channel 9.

In her twenties, she was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma.

So that was her first experience with cancer as a young woman, you know, very much in the public eye in Chattanooga.

Then in her thirties, after she was married, she was diagnosed with breast cancer for the first time, went into remission and then her breast cancer came back a second time and she did pass away from breast cancer in 2005 at the age of 45 years old.

Her son, Alex, was 15 when his mom passed away, and she saw a need to help the children of the families of breast cancer patients, because a lot of times, like in their situation, her and her husband, David's situation, they had to tap into Alex's college fund to help pay the bills from breast cancer.

So she wanted to meet the emotional needs of families in a different way by providing this need for the children and their future.

- And so you've continued that on with the scholarship fund now, and it's, how many scholarships have you provided, and kind of like a dollar amount?

- Yes, absolutely.

Well, Mary Ellen started the organization in 2002 with several of her friends from her church and her support group.

And so this is the year we're celebrating our 20th anniversary.

- [Barbara] Oh, wow.

- Yeah, so we're very excited about that.

So over those past 20 years, we've given away 568 scholarships.

And this year we broke the $1 million mark, just over $1 million in scholarships that we have awarded this year.

- And so the scholarship, what's the minimum and the maximum on the scholarship?

- Our minimum scholarship is $1,000.

Our maximum is $5,000.

We choose to stay at that level so that we can award more students still a significant chuck, a $5,000 scholarship.

This year we have eight, $5,000 winners.

- [Barbara] Oh wow.

- So, the majority of our winners are in the $2,500 to $5,000 range.

So we are able to help more children and yet still make a generous gift in that $5,000 range.

- I like that.

I love it.

So how does a student find out about it?

What's the qualifications for?

- All right, the qualifications are that you have to be the child of a breast cancer patient, either a mom or dad who has passed away.

- Oh okay.

Yeah, dads can get it too, who has passed away from breast cancer, who is in treatment currently, or who is a breast cancer survivor.

We do ask for proof of diagnosis, either a doctor's note or in the case of a death, a death certificate.

We do not set a minimum GPA because a lot of times the students, especially if they're diagnosed when they're, if their moms are diagnosed when they're in high school, it really affects their grades because they take on that mother-parent role for siblings in their home.

So I can look at a high school transcript and tell you when a child's mom was diagnosed, if it was in those high school years, because their grades will dip.

So we do not ask for a minimum GPA.

We do limit our awards to students who live within a 50 mile radius of Chattanooga.

All our funds are raised locally, so we keep them here with Chattanooga students.

This year we have 28 winners, and they represent 18 different high schools.

- Oh, that's so amazing.

- Yes.

- So there's a thing called Mel's Club.

- Yes.

- So tell me a little bit about that.

That was the first I heard about that one.

- Mel's Club is our breast health education program.

Shortly after I joined the foundation in 2011, I was looking through files and cleaning and sorting things out, and I found a manila folder in Mel's handwriting that had Mel's Club on it and it were all, all these notes that she had taken, all these dreams she had to start a breast health education program.

And knowing MaryEllen, who was a visionary thinker, she had a, let's take this nationwide at that point, you know, we, I thought, well, let's just try this locally.

So I found a curriculum, we have a curriculum that we use that is with permission from Prevent Cancer Foundation and Howard University Cancer Center.

Then I've tweaked it and tailored it to the Chattanooga area.

All the materials and the facts that I share have been vetted by the staff at the MaryEllen Locher Breast Center, so it's all accurate.

Update statistics and techniques and tools and ideas every year, I'll update the curriculum, but I go into high schools or so, you know, I can go to eighth grade as well, but I'm mainly focus on ninth graders because at the Hamilton County schools, public schools level, wellness is taught in ninth grade.

So I can hit all the wellness classes in one day, teach the girls how to take care of themselves, teach them that breast health is normal, necessary, and natural to start at an early age, so that if they are diagnosed or have someone in their family who is, who does face that news, they will not be as afraid because they've got the tools and they know what to expect.

- So basically what you're trying to do is demystify in a way.

- Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And in a fun way.

I walk in the room and I'll say, "I'm the boob lady and we're here to have a good time."

(laughing) And it's just kind of like, "Oh, okay."

And girls are like, "Whoa."

- I can see you in one of the grocery stores, "Oh look, there's the boob lady."

- That is so true.

Actually, I have had girls come up to me and go, "Aren't you the boob lady?

You were at my school."

And I'll say, "Yes."

So it's an honor to be remembered with a fun name, but they remember what I taught them because nobody else is teaching them this in the schools, and it's all hard topic to talk about with your mom, your guardian, your stepmom, your grandmother, whoever is the primary woman in your life.

- Yeah, that's true.

That's true.

So you had mentioned earlier this the age group as young as 15, 'cause it's normally under 40.

- [Cindy] Yes.

- And that is a growing population of women and even men that are being diagnosed with breast cancer.

- Absolutely.

- Statistics show that the fastest growing population of breast cancer patients is women under 40.

And if you're diagnosed at an early age, you're more likely to be diagnosed with a more severe and advanced form of breast cancer.

You're more likely to be diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer, which of course is a very deadly, can be a deadly and serious form of the disease.

And so if we start young by teaching girls how to take care of themselves, to start those self exams early, we will go into the classrooms.

We'll teach them how to do a self exam.

We use a tool called the pink daisy wheel, and it's an app they can download and oh, we'll give them a reminder on their calendars on their phone, "It's time to do your self exam."

I give them a packet of information to share with the other women in their family.

We give them some cute little trinkets, bracelets, candy, pencils, you know, they love those kinds of things, and then I bring a survivor who shares her story.

- [Barbara] Oh, wow.

- We talk about things like myths and misconceptions about breast cancer.

Girls believe just really crazy things about breast cancer.

Like if you get hit in the chest, you're gonna get breast cancer.

We also show them things like what an implant looks like, what a prosthetic bra is, what a drainage tube is that you come out of the hospital with.

So we also have models where they can feel what a lump and a cyst feels like in a model.

- Yeah.

- So when they start doing the exam themselves, they'll know what to feel for.

- And then, and hopefully catch it early enough.

- Absolutely.

Yes.

- That it can be treated instead of waiting.

and it's too far gone and everything.

- [Cindy] Absolutely.

- I think you're such a, everybody knows, as I said, the MaryEllen Locher, but I'm shocked at the statistics that you're seeing more and more of the 15 to 39 age group.

Are we attributing it to our lifestyles, the food we're eating?

Hereditary?

Is it a combination of all of them?

- If you look at statistics as I've, you know, read a research, I, of course, am no medical professional, but a lot of what I read, it says it's attributed to environmental factors.

So one of our scholarship winners this year is a 20 year, who was diagnosed with breast cancer herself at 20 years old.

So now she's a nursing student at Southern Adventist University.

Her name is Zoe Hamilton.

She found a lump at 19 with a family history of breast cancer with her mom.

And so at 20, she had a mastectomy and reconstructive surgery.

And now she actually works at Memorial in our emergency department, is planning a career as an emergency department nurse, and she's a very inspiring story.

So she was very vocal on social media and active on social media, sharing her story.

But it's powerful when you actually can help a child who's not only the child of a breast cancer survivor, but who has survived herself.

- Yeah, and what a powerful story, powerful story she has to tell.

- [Cindy] Absolutely.

- And be able to say, "This is my journey, this is what I've gone through."

And maybe there's another young lady out there, or even a young man out there that can say, "This resonates with me."

- [Cindy] Absolutely.

- Maybe let me check, or if they find something and they're not sure about it, it's like, I don't think that there was there last month.

Let me go check this.

Cause it's, that's very personal.

- [Cindy] It is, it is.

- It's not something that, I mean, when I was a young girl and everything, that's not something my mother taught me.

- No, it's not.

Something that young girls feel awkward talking about with their moms, but, you know, the nice, crazy lady that comes in my classroom, I can talk to her about anything.

I try to make it fun, A fun environment.

We do role plays at the end where we'll talk about scenarios such as, "Let's act this out.

You found a lump in your breast, but you're too embarrassed to say anything.

What do you do?"

So we, you know, the girls love those kinds of things so.

- Well, but the thing of it is, a lot of the connections with parents, the conversation's not there anymore because the parents are on their phone, the kids are on their phone, they're not really talking, they're not paying attention, and you become this nonthreatening, neutral but educational person, makes something very difficult, fun.

But you're educating them at the same time in a non-threatening way.

And I'm glad that our Hamilton County Schools allow you to come in there in, like you said, in the wellness programs.

- Absolutely.

And I also work with several of the private schools around here too.

- Oh, perfect.

I'm always open, I'll come to any school, any civic group, any church youth group that invites me.

- So if people in our audience who want to learn more about it, want to volunteer, is all that information on the website?

- Um hm, it's on - the Memorial website, memorial.org/melscholarshipfund.

Mel was MaryEllen's nickname so that's why Mel's Club, she came up with that name herself.

But Mel Scholarship Fund.

And there, you can find information about our scholarships.

Deadlines will have applications ready for the 2023/24 academic year, we work a year ahead on there starting October 1st.

You can also find information about Mel's Club.

My email and my phone number to reach me at CHI Memorial are there, and I'll be happy to talk with anyone and come out to any group.

Size doesn't matter to me, as long as there's one or two girls gathered, that's a group of women, young women that need to know about how to take control of your health at an early age to calm your fears.

- Yeah, Cindy, thank you so much.

- Thank you.

- [Barbara] This has been so educational.

- I appreciate it.

- And a person at my age, I've learned so much (Cindy laughs) and everything, but I love the fact that we're sharing that with the newcomers to Chattanooga.

- Yes, absolutely.

That there is a place to go.

And also for our young students, that may be watching or their parents are watching and they hear this and they're like, "Well, let me have this conversation with my daughter, or with my son."

- Absolutely.

- So, yeah.

Thank you so much.

- Thank you.

- And thank you for joining us.

We hope you've learned more about the incredible work being done by our nonprofits in our community.

So tell us what you think.

Email us at stronger@wtcitv.org or use the hashtag #strongerWTCI on social media.

I'm Barbara Marter, for all of us here at WTCI, we'll see you next time.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Support for this program is provided by the Weldon F. Osborne Foundation, the Schillhahn-Husky Foundation, and viewers like you.

Thank you.