Meet Sally Vosk

“With all the world-class health care services here, how could we not have a Gilda’s Club in Atlanta?” asks Alpharetta resident Sally Vosk. “We have such wonderful facilities for treatment, but treatment is not enough. You need a place to call home.”

Sally and her family have been living with cancer for over 12 years. She was already grieving the loss of her mother when the diagnosis of breast cancer came. A mastectomy followed, as did a lot of crying and contemplation about her future - and whether she’d have one.

Like a scene out of a movie, Sally remembers a dream where her grandmother pushed her to change her life. “I was still recovering - recovering both from losing my mother and losing a part of my body. I needed to heal and find a new way of living.”

That new path led the Vosk family to leave Connecticut and start over in Atlanta. Everything in Atlanta was new - new house, new schools for daughter Rachel, and a new, less stressful job for Sally. But what wasn’t new in Atlanta was living with cancer.

“I live with cancer every day. It’s something that never leaves you,” she says. She knows she’s not the only one who lived with it then, remembering Rachel’s fourth grade assignment to write about someone you admire. “She wrote ‘my mother is a cancer survivor.’ I was amazed how aware she was of it, even so young.”

 “It was hard to initially find cancer support here beyond health treatment. There were probably groups, but I couldn’t find them.” If Atlanta had a Gilda’s Club back then, Sally says she and her daughter “would have been there in a heartbeat. It would have been great to be at a place with other families, where you’d know you’re not alone.”

“I come from a family where no one’s ever had cancer before,” Sally shares. “No one knows how to give you the mental, spiritual, and emotional support better than others who’ve gone through it.”

 “There’s not one person in Atlanta who has not been affected by cancer in some way,” notes Sally. “How could you not help a person get through one of the most difficult times of their lives?”

To help others like Sally live with cancer, help us move closer to opening a Gilda’s Club today. Click here to make an online donation, or call 770-496-7811.