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Pictures of area cancer survivors on products

Kroger employees are sharing their stories to promote cancer awareness.

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Jeanne Gossel is featured on boxes of Special K cereal.

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By Meredith Moss, Staff Writer 1:12 PM Saturday, October 29, 2011

HUBER HEIGHTS — Imagine walking down the grocery aisle and spotting your own face staring back at you from stacks of cereal boxes?

That’s what’s happening to Jeanne Gossel these days. The Beavercreek woman’s personal breast cancer journey and photograph are currently featured on boxes of Special K cereal at Kroger stores throughout our area as part of the grocery chain’s Giving Hope a Hand campaign.

“I knew I would be on posters in the stores I work in, but I didn’t realize I would end up on a cereal box!” said Gossel, who works as a pharmacist at the Brandt Pike Kroger in Huber Heights and says she’s ordinarily not one to seek attention.

“It’s quite weird,” she admits. “You want to turn the boxes around so you don’t see your picture!”

But Gossel, like a number of other Kroger employees throughout the Dayton/Cincinnati area, has agreed to share her story — and her photo — in the hopes of helping others.

“If I can help one other person think twice about breast cancer and make them get a mammogram or take some positive action toward early detection, then I’ll have done something,”says Gossel, who responded to a call from her employer asking for breast cancer survivors willing to tell their story.

Rachael Betzler, public relations manager for Kroger’s Cincinnati-Dayton division, says the company has been partnering with breast cancer organizations for more than 10 years and now gives $3 million across the country to research organizations devoted to breast cancer.

Pink tags are placed throughout the stores to promote products produced by vendor partners.

“Throughout October our stores get involved with fund raising activities as well as general breast cancer awareness,” Betzler says. “Employees walk for both the American Cancer Society’s Making Strides Against Breast Cancer and the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure.”

At the Beavercreek store, for example, fundraisers have included a pink balloon launch for breast cancer, face painting of pink ribbons and a carnation sale aimed at filling up a sculpture fashioned of chicken wire and ribbon.

Kroger also partners with several suppliers, says Betzler, to feature breast cancer survivors on packaging of participating products. Employees from our area are pictured on packaging ranging from Kraft Macaroni and Cheese to Sargento Classic mozzarella cheese and Purina Cat Chow.

Efforts in Dayton and Cincinnati will result in $190,000 to distribution to area organizations; $100,000 will go to the American Cancer Society.

“We have a lot of brave associates that have had to fight this disease,” Betzler says, “and we are honored that they are willing to share their stories not only with their own fellow Kroger associates, but also our customers.”

The wording on Jeanne Gossel’s box of Special K reveals that she was 44 years old when her doctor noticed a lump in her left breast.

“He recommended a mammogram, which was inconclusive,” she says. “That led to a biopsy and I was finally confirmed with Stage 1 invasive breast cancer. I had a lumpectomy then four cycles of chemotherapy and 35 treatments of radiation.”

Gossel, a wife and mother of three, says she considers herself “a very strong, independent individual.” She says it’s always been difficult for her to accept help from others, but believes it’s an important lesson to learn.

“During the process of treatment and recovery, I had wonderful family and friends and they all reached out to me,” she says. “It was through them I gained the strength to continue to fight cancer.”

Today, at 47, she says she is “doing wonderfully.”

“I learned that recovery sometimes is being helped by others,” she says.

“Other times it may involve helping others. I have been cancer free for over two years and feel very lucky and blessed to have such wonderful people in my life.”

Among the Kroger area employees whose breast cancer stories are featured on products are:

Debbie White of the Kroger in Hebron, KY, Miriam Moore of Xenia, Kim Harvey and Michelle Karwisch of Kroger Northgate, Chandra Banks of Kroger Milford, Pamela Gear of Sharonville, Terri Schiller of Kroger Beavercreek, Marilyn VanWinkle of Kroger Mt. Orab, and Lynn Lecours and Carol Hackman of the Kroger Corporate Office in downtown Cincinnati.

To see the breast cancer stories of these Kroger associates, see www.sharingcounrage.com, an interactive website focused on breast cancer awareness.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2440 or mmoss@Dayton DailyNews.com.

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