Jewelry sale to benefit Joanie’s Sisters

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Neighbors | Submitted.Jewelry artist Sue Malkoff (left), Kathie Marini (community liaison for the Joanie Abdu Comprehensive Breast Care Center) and breast cancer survivor Diane Berardi display jewelry that will be sold to benefit Joanie’s Sisters in Support, a support sorority for women affected by breast and ovarian cancers

Throughout their lives, sisters support each other. They encourage each other, cheer each other on, celebrate their achievements and accomplishments together and lend helping hands. They share tears and laughter, heartache and joy.

Joanie’s Sisters in Support, a support sorority, does all of that and more for women joined together by their battles against breast and ovarian cancers – a sisterhood of survivors.

The group, which was organized in June, meets once a month at the Joanie Abdu Comprehensive Breast Care Center. A budget – to pay for speakers, refreshments, T-shirts, etc. – is nonexistent. Or was, until Sue Malkoff, a local jewelry artist, offered to make and sell cancer-related jewelry and donate a portion of the proceeds to support the group. Malkoff’s jewelry – glass and metal pendants – is ordinarily sold in galleries such as the gift shop at the Butler Institute of American Art and Trumbull Art Gallery.

A psychotherapist in private practice, Malkoff was inspired to create a special selection of cancer-related jewelry by her patients, many of whom seek her help in dealing with serious illnesses such as cancer.

Dealing with the diagnosis of a potentially life-threatening illness, treatments that can be extremely difficult, financial hardships that come about when a bread-winner is ill or misses work to care for a loved one are issues that affect many of the families who seek her help, Malkoff explained.

Making jewelry is a relaxing activity that enables her to regenerate her own energies, Malkoff says. Developing an exclusive jewelry line to benefit cancer patients and their families serves both her own and philanthropic purposes.

Embellished with pink ribbons and words of hope, love, survival and courage, the jewelry was introduced during a special sale outside the cafeteria at St. Elizabeth Health Center in Youngstown on Aug. 7, and will be available from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. in the lobby at St. Joseph Health Center on Oct. 24 and at the fall craft show on Nov. 21 at St. Elizabeth Boardman Health Center.