Eileen Filliben Edmunds to lead Delaware Breast Cancer Coalition
The board of trustees of the Delaware Breast Cancer Coalition announced that Eileen Filliben Edmunds, JD/MBA, became the new executive director of the statewide nonprofit organization in January. Edmunds, a two-time breast cancer survivor and a former volunteer and board member of the coalition, is eager to settle into her new role.
A native of Wilmington, Edmunds attended St. Mary Magdalen grade school and Archmere Academy high school. She was awarded a Jefferson Scholarship, a full four-year merit scholarship, to attend the University of Virginia as an undergraduate. After receiving her JD/MBA from the University of Virginia, Edmunds started her legal career in corporate governance, commercial litigation, and labor and employment law at Willie Farr and Gallagher in New York City before moving back home to Wilmington and practicing at Potter, Anderson and Corroon. A published author and featured speaker, Edmunds is currently a principal of ModernThink LLC, a human resources and organizational development consulting firm that, among other things, researches and sponsors the Great Colleges to Work For Program.
As a two-time breast cancer survivor who was first diagnosed at the age of 31, Edmunds has unique insight into the challenges many survivors face and is creating a film based on her experiences. After her second diagnosis in 2008, she had a double mastectomy. Unfortunately, following multiple complications, her reconstruction failed on the left side. She lived for over six and a half years with no left breast, resorting to breast forms, and specially made bras and bathing suits. In 2015, she chose to pursue a DIEP flap reconstruction. Hoping to demystify the experience for other survivors and their caregivers, she decided to make an educational film about her surgery as well as other post-mastectomy options – including no reconstruction at all. The film's aims are to empower survivors to better understand their options, ask probing questions and make more informed decisions.
Delaware Breast Cancer Coalition Executive Director Vicky Cooke retired effective January 2017. In 2000, Cooke was hired as the coalition's first executive director and has expanded the agency from an all-volunteer organization to a vibrant statewide nonprofit developing programs and services that address the breast health needs of women and men in Delaware and the tri-state region. Her career has encompassed over 48 years of nonprofit management and program development experience. She is also a two-time breast cancer survivor. Cooke is the mother of three grown daughters, and she has nine grandchildren.
Now celebrating its 25th anniversary, the Delaware Breast Cancer Coalition is Delaware's only nonprofit organization solely focused on breast health issues. It provides outreach, support services and education to women and men throughout the state and in neighboring areas in Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Jersey. With the latest in digital imaging equipment, the coalition's mobile health screening van provides mobile mammography services to low-income, uninsured women in Delaware. Coalition programs have been developed and implemented to meet the unique needs of diverse populations including young women with breast cancer, African-American women, Latinas, lesbians and women with disabilities. The coalition has conducted educational sessions for the general public through corporate and community organizations to train women to become advocates for their own breast health. In addition, it has referred thousands of adults for free or low-cost cancer screenings and has removed barriers to cancer screenings and treatment by providing interpretation, transportation and mammography services.
For more information, call 866-312-3222 or go to www.debreastcancer.org.
