Elevated Survivorship

10/13/2026

She’s not “non-compliant.” She’s hungry.

Part Two of The Pinkprint Series examines Nutrition Justice and its direct connection to breast cancer outcomes.

Good nutrition can help a patient:

💗 Maintain strength during treatment
💗 Rebuild damaged tissue
💗 Better tolerate chemotherapy and radiation
💗 Manage side effects
💗 Improve her quality of life

But what happens when healthy food is unavailable, unaffordable or inaccessible in the community where she lives?

Food insecurity is not a personal failure. It is a systemic barrier—and it disproportionately affects Black women with breast cancer on Chicago’s South Side and in the South Suburbs.

Food pantries, community refrigerators and delivery programs matter. But lasting change also requires well-stocked grocery stores, supportive policies, targeted investment and community-driven solutions.

Nutrition justice is healthcare.
Nutrition justice is breast cancer equity.
And Black women should not have to wait.

📖 Read Part Two in the Chicago Defender:
https://chicagodefender.com/shes-not-non-compliant-shes-hungry-addressing-food-justice-to-improve-breast-cancer-outcomes/

The Pinkprint Series: 4 Issues. 4 Conversations. One Call to Action.

10/13/2026

She’s not “non-compliant.” She’s hungry.

Part Two of The Pinkprint Series is now available in the Chicago Defender.

In this installment, we turn our attention to Nutrition Justice and a truth that must be part of every conversation about breast cancer outcomes: good nutrition is essential during treatment, but too many Black women live in communities where safe, healthy and affordable food is difficult to access.

For a woman undergoing chemotherapy or radiation, nutritious food can help her maintain strength, rebuild damaged tissue, manage side effects and better withstand treatment. Yet neighborhoods across Chicago’s South Side and South Suburbs continue to face food insecurity and an inadequate nutrition infrastructure.

Food pantries, community refrigerators and delivery programs provide vital support—but our communities also need sustainable investment, including clean, well-stocked grocery stores, supportive public policies and community-driven solutions that reach patients where they live.

Nutrition justice is not separate from healthcare. It is part of healthcare.

We invite you to read Part Two of our four-part Pinkprint op-ed series, co-authored by Angela K. Waller of Elevated Survivorship, Shonta Chambers of the Patient Advocate Foundation and Ariel J. Thomas of Manifest Vision Partners.

📖 Read “She’s Not Non-Compliant, She’s Hungry: Addressing Food Justice to Improve Breast Cancer Outcomes”:

https://chicagodefender.com/shes-not-non-compliant-shes-hungry-addressing-food-justice-to-improve-breast-cancer-outcomes/

4 Issues. 4 Conversations. One Call to Action.

By Angela K. Waller, Elevated Survivorship; Shonta Chambers, Patient Advocate Foundation; Ariel J. Thomas, Manifest Vision Partners Here’s a transformational idea: everyone should have access to safe, healthy and affordable food. If this idea doesn’t feel radical to you, then perhaps you haven.....

10/11/2026

October is off and running for Elevated Survivorship. A special guest for the DuSable Museum Legacy Awards, Sista Strut with my CMAC sorors, the University of Chicago’s South Side Community Science Fair, the keynote speaker for the Pink Purpose Project, speaker for the Richton Square Apartments breast cancer walk, and supporting TGIN at the annual Cocktails for the Cure.

There’s more in store as we continue to partner, connect, collaborate, and share our story throughout the month.

10/08/2026

Join our Founder & CEO Angela K. Waller and these other distinguished panelists as a timely discussion is had on breast cancer before, during, and after treatment.

REGISTER HERE: https://bit.ly/4rSoL2C

10/01/2026

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month—and for Elevated Survivorship, awareness is only the beginning.

This month, we honor the women who have survived, remember those we have lost, and continue working toward a future where every woman has an equitable opportunity to survive and thrive after a breast cancer diagnosis.

At Elevated Survivorship, we believe the lived experiences of African American breast cancer survivors must help shape the research, policies, and systems that affect our lives and our communities.

Throughout October, we will continue to raise awareness, amplify survivor voices, increase knowledge, advocate for change, and address the disparities that contribute to inequitable breast cancer outcomes.

Because breast cancer awareness cannot end with wearing pink. It must lead to action.

Together, we can break barriers, improve outcomes, and create a healthier, more equitable future for generations to come.

Honoring survivors. Elevating lived experience. Advancing research and policy.

09/28/2026

This is what it looks like when community voice makes its way to a national stage.

Today, I had the privilege of presenting our work on the Chicago Better Together Breast Cancer Disparities Think Tank and The Pinkprint at the 2026 Cancer Center Community Impact Forum in Seattle, alongside our partners from the University of Chicago Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Standing next to this poster was a proud moment for me.

The Pinkprint didn’t begin in a conference room with people deciding what a community needed. It began by listening—to Black breast cancer survivors and community members on Chicago’s South Side and to their experiences with the conditions that influence breast cancer outcomes.

Those voices helped us identify four areas requiring attention: Access to Care, Environmental Justice, Nutrition Justice, and Social-Emotional Well-Being.

And those conversations became a strategy.

For me, that’s what makes presenting this work here so meaningful. We’re demonstrating what can happen when community members—and particularly survivors—are not simply asked to participate, but are given a meaningful role in identifying problems, shaping priorities, and developing solutions.

I’m grateful to our partners at the University of Chicago Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Patient Advocate Foundation, our Think Tank members, Community Ambassadors, and everyone who has helped move this work forward.

From Chicago’s South Side to Seattle, the message remains the same: lived experience is expertise.

And it deserves a place wherever decisions about cancer research, policy, and community health are being made.

09/18/2026

The Pinkprint is entering the conversation. 💗

We’re proud to launch a four-part op-ed series in the Chicago Defender focused on the four issue areas shaping breast cancer outcomes for Black women on Chicago’s South Side and South Suburbs.

First up: The Cancer Care Continuum.

Before remission.
Before treatment.
Before survivorship.
There must first be a diagnosis.

And for too many Black women, that diagnosis comes too late.

Our first article examines screening, access to high-quality care, clinical trial representation and the systemic barriers that continue to influence who has the opportunity not only to survive breast cancer — but to thrive.

This is Part One.

Four issue areas.
Four conversations.
One goal: changing the conditions that contribute to breast cancer mortality among Black women.

📖 Read the first installment in the Chicago Defender. https://bit.ly/4riuDC5

CancerCareContinuum ChicagoBetterTogether SouthSideChicago

09/18/2026

We’re taking The Pinkprint from strategy to public conversation.

Elevated Survivorship, Manifest Vision Partners and the Patient Advocate Foundation are proud to launch a four-part Chicago Defender op-ed series examining the four critical issue areas at the heart of The Pinkprint: Chicago Edition — our community-informed strategy for addressing breast cancer mortality among Black women on Chicago’s South Side and South Suburbs.

We begin with the Cancer Care Continuum.

Before treatment. Before remission. Before survivorship. There must first be a diagnosis — and for too many Black women, that diagnosis comes too late.

In our first op-ed, we examine the barriers that shape breast cancer outcomes, including access to timely screening, high-quality care, clinical trials and policies that support equitable treatment.

But this conversation is bigger than one article.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll continue exploring the systems and conditions that affect breast cancer outcomes — and the community-driven solutions that can help change them.

📖 Read Part One of our Chicago Defender series: The Cancer Care Continuum
https://bit.ly/4riuDC5

Then stay with us. There is much more to come.

08/06/2026

The Chicago Better Together Breast Cancer Disparities (CBTBCD) Think Tank is launching its 2026 Advocacy Training Series — a two-part workshop experience preparing Community Ambassadors, Think Tank Members, and Neighbors across Chicago's Southside to take direct action on food access and breast cancer care equity.

This series is the training ground for our October Policy Mobilization Activity, where we will put these skills into practice to advocate for increased access to healthy, nutritious food in Washington Heights, a Chicago Community Area with limited fresh food access.

Workshop 1 | August 15, 2026 | 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM
The first half of this session will be a discussion to help select our 2026 policy mobilization direction, plus the introduction to a potential interim fresh food access option for Washington Heights. Afterwards, we will dive into legislative interaction skill-building, facilitated by Claude Robinson (Onyx Strategic Partners).

Workshop 2 | September 12, 2026 | 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM
We'll learn about witness slip submission, bill-tracking, and continue interactive role-play for legislator engagement, facilitated by Tomás de'Medici (Ion Stewards Energy).

Location: The Quarry, 2423 E. 75th Street, Chicago, IL

Open to All!

Register Here: https://events.eventnoire.com/e/2026advocacyworkshops

The Implementation Phase of the Chicago Better Together Breast Cancer Disparities Think Tank has been generously supported by Pfizer.

Event Sponsors
https://www.elevatedsurvivorship.org/
https://www.patientadvocate.org/

07/02/2026

I'm incredibly honored and deeply grateful.
Thank you to the Chicago Foundation for Women South Side Giving Circle for believing in the vision of Elevated Survivorship by awarding us a $15,000 General Operating Support Grant, and for the honor of selecting me as a recipient of the $3,000 Leadership Award.
These investments are about so much more than funding—they are an investment in the power of lived experience. They affirm that African American breast cancer survivors deserve a seat at every table where research, policy, and decisions about our health are being made.
This support allows us to continue advancing The Pinkprint: A Strategy to Address Breast Cancer Mortality in African American Women on Chicago's South Side, ensuring that survivor voices help shape the systems intended to serve us.
To our board, partners, volunteers, survivors, and everyone who has believed in this work—thank you. This recognition belongs to all of us.
The work continues, and we're just getting started.