Meet Joanne Reilley

Joanne Reilley was a Gilda’s Club member, then a Gilda’s Club volunteer, and now the executive director of Gilda’s Club Greater Atlanta. So opening a Gilda’s Club here has become a very personal journey for the Alpharetta resident. “Cancer changed my life,” she says, “and my life changed again when I discovered Gilda’s Club.”

Joanne’s journey has taken her across the country--literally.  When husband Bob took a new job in South Florida in June 1995, Joanne and her son Kevin said goodbye to Chicago. That same September, Joanne recalls dressing for a party and feeling a jolt of pain under her arm.

“I felt a lump,” she tells. “We hadn’t been there long—I didn’t have any doctors and didn’t know where to go.” The next day, she ran into their realtor at the store. “She asked me how I was acclimating to the changes, and I began to cry.”

“The doctors said that nothing was wrong. I rejected that,” she said, opting for a lumpectomy. “I woke up in the recovery room and saw my husband crying, and heard the doctors tell me they were wrong. It was cancer.”

After a complete mastectomy the following month and high doses of chemo to follow, Joanne spent the next year and a half recovering. She remembers one of the hardest things to do during that time was handling the questions of her then five-year-old son.

“He asked, ‘Mom, are you going to die?’ I don’t think you are ever ready to answer that. I didn’t have anybody to talk to about that ~ I wondered if I said the right things, did I help him understand?”

In early 1997, she saw a tiny ad announcing the opening of Gilda’s Club South Florida. “It said, ‘Are you living with cancer? Come as you are,’” Joanne remembers. “It changed my life.”

The club was just a small office space, but “they turned it into a home,” citing one of the common traits of Gilda’s Clubs around the nation. “I started going and soon was drawn to help with new member meetings and be a volunteer. I knew this is where I needed to be on my cancer journey.”

Joanne’s life journey continued, though, when Bob’s job took the family back to Chicago, and then to Atlanta. With her son preparing to start high school, the family decided to stay put. So, Joanne, a former business owner, finally felt she could commit to full-time work again. Unsure what she could do with her time, it was Bob who finally said, “Why don’t you open up a Gilda’s Club in Atlanta?” Suddenly the lightbulb went on, and the journey took a new turn.

Joanne volunteered extensively until the board asked her to become the executive director in 2006.  Unlike many nonprofits, she has no paid staff, but that has not stopped her. “When I came on board, we had four volunteers and one of them was me,” Joanne remembers. “Now we’ve built a volunteer army ~ 100 strong, and growing every day.”

“We are getting the word out,” she tells. “We are making a difference in the lives of people living with cancer. I truly look forward to the day when we can open the red door here!”

Please join us in getting the word out and raising the needed dollars to open Gilda’s Club’s red door. Make your tax-deductible donation today by clicking here or calling
770-496-7811.