Board Members

Sabrina Mayhew is a Program Coordinator with Sharing & Caring, Breast Cancer Education and Support and a Registered Nurse at Beaumont Health in Radiation Oncology. She is the founder of The Angel Pillow Project (www.angelpillow.org), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that brings hope, emotional and physical support to newly diagnosed breast cancer patients.

Sabrina completed Project Lead training shortly after her breast cancer diagnosis in 2011. She has attended the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium as an advocate for the past 4 years. She remains an active member of Gilda’s Club of Metro Detroit and acts as a class facilitator. She co-founded REACH yoga with the Yoga By Design Foundation to offer free yoga classes to breast cancer survivors at Karma yoga in Bloomfield Hills, MI. She has been active with MiBCC since 2012.

Mary Lynn Faunda Donovan has been a passion breast cancer advocate since her diagnosis 20+ years ago. She is the past Executive Director of the Michigan Ovarian Cancer Alliance, a statewide organization that strives to save women’s lives by promoting the early detection of ovarian cancer and improved treatment outcomes as well as by funding ovarian cancer research. Previously, she served for 10 years as the Executive Director of VOYCE, which provides advocacy services to 29,000 individuals in 360 long-term care communities in 21 counties in Greater St. Louis and Northeastern Missouri. Prior to VOYCE, Mary Lynn was the Executive Director of the South Carolina Mountains to Midlands Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, which served 22 counties in South Carolina.

She has served on the board of the directors of the National Breast Cancer Coalition and is the past co-president of the St. Louis Breast Cancer Coalition.  Mary Lynn currently serves on the Breast Cancer Advocate Advisory Committee of the University of Michigan, the MDHHS Program for Breast Cancer in Young Women Advisory Council and the Michigan Cancer Consortium workgroup to decrease last stage breast cancer diagnoses. She also represents the MiBCC on the Michigan Cancer Consortium.

Marilyn Holcombe is a Cybersecurity & Technology Senior Risk Manager at General Electric Aviation, GE Women’s Network Board Member providing financial assistance to female undergraduates in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematic) fields selected by the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) and an active breast cancer advocate in the Detroit Metro area.

After her mother was diagnosed through early detection and screening (annual mammogram) at the age of 65, she became interested in educating, advocating and eradicating.

Her personal goal is to focus on prevention so that her daughter, sister, family and friends will not be forced to undergo the emotional and painful journey of a breast cancer diagnosis.

I am a stage 4 metastatic breast cancer patient and a scientist. As a scientist, I am interested in educating patients, the public, and legislators about the science behind this disease. We have a better chance to cure it if we understand it, and that requires funding for research. And we have a better chance to advocate for funding and legislation if we understand the science of breast cancer. My best friend and my sister both died of breast cancer before I was diagnosed, and breast cancer advocacy is a way for me to honor them and to add their voices to mine.

As a scientist working on prostate cancer and funded by the Department of Defense (DOD), I had the privilege to witness the power and contributions of patient advocates at prostate cancer meetings and of patient advocates (also referred to as “consumer reviewers”) at DOD prostate cancer grant application review committees. I was inspired to become an advocate and consumer reviewer to help further the progress of research to eradicate breast cancer.

I have represented MiBCC on the Board of Directors of Michigan Cancer Consortium (www.michigancancer.org), and on the Breast Cancer Advisory Board of Michigan State University’s Breast Cancer and the Environment Research Program. In addition, I am a member of the University of Michigan Breast Cancer Advocate Advisory Committee.

I have been a pediatric occupational therapist for the past 21 years. I currently works full time for Ionia County Intermediate School District in the Early Intervention Program. I was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer in 2016, a 5-year breast cancer thriver.

I regularly participates in breast cancer conferences and advocacy events such as the Virtual Lobby Day through Metavivor, conferences through Komen of Michigan, Theresa’s Research Foundation and Living Beyond Breast Cancer. I am a retreat leader for Little Pink House of Hope and a mentor for Imerman Angels. I currently serve on the Advisory Council of the MDHHS Program for Breast Cancer in Young Women and on the work group for metastatic patients as a part of the MDHHS Program for Breast Cancer in Young Women. I have testified at a senate hearing committee through the Health Can’t Wait initiative. I also write a blog terminallyjoyful.com.

Maria Lyzen, RN, MPH is a retired manager and nurse from the automobile industry.  Just as she was thinking of retiring and living those “golden years”, she discovered a lump in her breast and her life took a different route.

Along the way of treatment, she was influenced by the medical professionals that took care of her and the advocates she met along the way and decided to join the revolution of advocacy.  Never say that your voice does not count for breast cancer is a political issue and how and who gets treated is legislated by lawmakers by virtue of how research money and projects are funded.

Maria previously served as Co-Chair of the University of Michigan Breast Cancer Advocate Advisory Committee (UMBCAAC).