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| Founders and Directors |
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| Jillian H. Acord |
| In May 2008, just days shy of her 42nd birthday, Jill received the news that would singularly change her life forever, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. After first calling her husband Michael, Jill turned to her sisters of the heart and BFFs, Jackie and Iffie. Jill credits her sister soldiers with helping her navigate the overwhelming wall of information and difficult choices that needed to be made in an extremely short period of time.
The three sisters soon met Gabriela, who was on a similar path helping her sister battle breast cancer. Together, they were inspired to create the Sister Soldiers Foundation (SSF) and make a difference in the lives of all women by promoting early detection.
Today, Jill contributes her personal experience with beating breast cancer - to first and foremost early detection and secondly the care and support that she was surrounded with, which made a difference in her treatment and outcome. Along with this personal journey she brings her business acumen to SSF. Her goal is to save lives and stop this disease in its early stages by providing free mammograms to uninsured and underinsured women.
Along with being the Vice President of Marketing, Operations and IT for Mitsubishi Imaging Inc. (MPM) - one of the world’s largest trading companies - Jill is also wife to Michael Vaughn Acord, who she proudly states is "still the love of my life." Jill and her family, which includes their "two amazing kids, Zane and Zoe," reside in Litchfield County, Conn. In her own words, Jill credits her family as "my reason for being, my strength and my world’s future!" |
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| Iffie Aitkenhead |
For Iffie, a physician and Assistant Professor at the NYU Langone Medical Center and the NYU School of Medicine, being a soldier in Jill's battle, not only strengthened her commitment to the healing science of medicine, but also to the therapeutic bonds of sisterhood. Iffie's husband, Ben, a Managing Director at an international bank, also championed the cause, having lost his mother, Sheila, to breast cancers when he was a teenager. Their commitment to the Sister Soldiers Foundation's mission of increasing survival through early detection is reinforced each day, when they look at the eyes of their three daughters, Kate, Sophie and Lauren. For they know that ultimately, early detection saves lives. |
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| Jackie Kern |
| Upon learning that her dear friend Jill had been diagnosed with breast cancer at age 42, Jackie felt paralyzed. At the time, Jackie wrestled with two thoughts: 1) that it could have been her and 2) that she desperately wanted to help Jill. In response to the overwhelming number of depressing support groups she encountered, they decided to start their own group - Sister Soldiers Unite. The group was dedicated to Susan Gray Lichtenstein, Jackie’s mother-in-law and "a true Sister Soldier," who lost her battle with breast cancer six months after Jackie married Susan's son, Ace.
Fortunately, Jill's story had a happy ending thanks to early detection caught through routine mammograms and self examination. Through their journey they realized that many women were not getting the care that Jill could afford or were not putting enough importance on the need for routine examinations. As a result, the support group became Sister Soldiers Foundation (SSF), with a mission to raise awareness and money to help women who were either underinsured or uninsured afford a mammogram.
Today, Jackie works in close partnership with her fellow SSF founders to promote the foundation and its goals, including organizing fundraising events and establishing relationships with hospitals and medical centers. Jackie’s hope is that SSF will be instrumental in saving thousands of lives by encouraging every woman that can afford a mammogram to donate one to a woman in need.
When she's not busy being the founder and managing director of Main Street Direct, a full-service direct response advertising agency, Jackie can be found spending time with her "two awesome boys," being "spoiled rotten by a husband who loves to cook" and indulging her passion as a "self-proclaimed yoga addict." |
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| Gabriela de la Vega |
| Gabriela’s first significant encounter with breast cancer came in 2007, when her younger sister was diagnosed at age 35. It was "a real wake up call" since Gabriela had never lost anyone she loved. It left her "feeling so helpless … so [she] decided to do something about it."
As a jewelry designer and the owner of Gabriela de la Vega, a precious handwrought jewelry company, Gabriela met Jackie, Jill and Iffie at a social event. She was impressed by the dynamic nature of the three women and decided to ask them to lunch. During lunch, Gabriela broached the idea of extending Sister Soldiers Unite from a support group to a foundation with a mission to “think globally, act locally.”
Gabriela uses her trunk shows and sales events to raise money for the foundation by donating a percentage of sales - including 100 percent of proceeds from the sale of the specially designed key necklace that features SSF’s logo - to the foundation.
Gabriela's hope for SSF is to spare other families "from experiencing the pain of breast cancer" and to ensure that other women "can discover [their] breast cancer early enough for it to be treated effectively." Gabriella is married to artist/painter Nikko Sedgwick and the couple has two boys, Alex (a student at Brown University) and Otis (a "swordsman and rock star in training!" |
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