SHELBY L. SPEAS goes beyond the call of duty in her advocacy for women’s health. She was instrumental in establishing and providing on-going support for the African-American Community Health Advisory Committee that includes a network of 14 churches. Through the years she has helped obtain funding and educational materials as well as recruited her colleagues as skilled volunteers to help with this important work. Her volunteer spirit also has benefited other projects, from Christmas In April and Cancer Survivor’s Day picnics, to walking beside her employees and colleagues to raise funds to fight breast cancer and her heart disease. Among the organizations she continues to support are the Mills-Peninsula Hospital Foundation, Northern California Cancer Center, and the American Heart Association. Shelby was instrumental in establishing the Breast Cancer, a regional resource for all women as well as the new Dorothy E. Schneider cancer Center. One of her current projects is the development of the Women’s Center at Mills – with programs and services for conditions that exist only in women, occur more frequently in women, or affect women differently than men. She was Soroptomist Woman of the Year for 2000.
