Yvonne McCalla Foundation INC.

The Yvonne McCalla Foundation Incorporated (YMF Inc.) was established by her daughter, Debra N. Gunter (President and Chair) and her son Kirkwood A. Williams to honor her legacy through its scholarship foundation and breast cancer awareness programs. On August 12, 2006, Yvonne lost a courageous 1 ½ year battle to breast cancer. Yvonne M. McCalla, BSRN dedicated her life to public health.

In her latter years, Yvonne worked as a Registered Nurse on the Oncology unit at Robert Wood Johnson, Medical Center attending to the medical needs of many cancer patients.

Her profession coupled with her educational background and personal experience with breast cancer, Yvonne McCalla recognized the importance of minority women to participate in research study. She explained that although there has been breakthrough with the creation of new chemotherapy drugs to help treat breast cancer, minority women continue to die as a result of the illness at a faster pace. Minority women face a lower risk of being diagnosed with breast cancer as compared to Caucasian-American women, yet minority women paradoxically face an increased breast cancer mortality rate. Researchers hypothesize several reasons for this; possible reasons are socioeconomic, genetic, biological factors that account for these variations. In addition, minority women tend to have breast cancer tumor types that are more aggressive and have poorer prognoses as seen in the case of Yvonne McCalla. YMF Inc. strives to bring awareness to the above to minority women twenty-one years young and older.

The Board of Directors of YMF Inc. consists of President, Debra N. Gunter, MSW, Vivian Arrindell, BSRN, Debbie Brooks-Wynter, Desiraee Holt, MS, Thalia Hughes, Fatima A. McCarter, MS, Latrina Ross and Kirkwood A. Williams. The Board of Directors is comprised of individuals from the medical and private sectors.YMF Inc. is a 501 (c)(3) organization.