Amy Rees of East Cobb, a local artist and entrepreneur, is partnering with a non-profit called It’s The Journey to raise awareness for breast cancer.
The organization is holding a Georgia 2-Day Walk Oct. 7-8 that will cover 30 miles in the city of Atlanta (here’s the route).
Rees, the owner of AmyWynne Designs also created Personality Plates, a collection of hand-painted stoneware plates. That includes a line called the Sisters in Pink collection to honor women who have helped, motivated and inspired her.
Those driving forces include her mother Bobbi Strauss, now 82, who as a teenager in the late 1950s was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy.
“This aligns with our own mission of supporting women in need,” Rees said in a release. “Our Sisters In Pink initiative is more than a collection of plates; it’s a tribute to every woman, who has faced the unfathomable journey of breast cancer with courage and resilience,” said Amy.
“However, this project also resonates on a deeply personal level for me. My mom, Bobbi, is one of the reasons I wanted to create this line. I can’t even call her a breast cancer ‘survivor’ because she didn’t ‘survive’ life, she is living it to its fullest! I wanted to share her powerful story.”
Strauss was detected with breast cancer at a time when women were discouraged from being public about it beyond telling family members.
“They thought they were protecting me by keeping it a secret,” Strauss said in the release. “It was 1959 and they didn’t want people looking at me differently.”
She didn’t have a support group and didn’t confide even with friends. But photographers would take pictures during her hospital recovery for medical journals.
Rees is the only child of Bobbi Strauss and her husband, who died more than two decades ago.
“Amid all her trials, my mother has always exuded positivity, gratitude, and grace,” Rees said, “She has never viewed herself as a victim, but rather a survivor; someone who considers herself fortunate for the time she had with my father, and for the joys of being a mother and a grandmother. She stands today as a beacon of hope and strength.”
The Sisters in Pink Collection, according to Rees, “is a symbol of our collective hope for a future where early detection, comprehensive treatments, and open conversations about breast cancer become the norm, not the exception.”
A total of 10 percent of the proceeds from the Sisters in Pink sales will go to It’s The Journey.
