HERS Breast Cancer Foundation :: Bras for Body & Soul

FAQs

The HERS Breast Cancer Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, provides programs and services supporting the needs of women and families affected by breast cancer in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Bras for Body & Soul®, a program of the HERS Breast Cancer Foundation, provides medically necessary items such as bras, prosthesis, lymphedema sleeves, wigs and more, to women who have had breast surgery. We also carry bras appropriate for all women and girls, including nursing bras.

News >> St. Catherine's Alumnae News

Tricia J. McMahon, D. Min. and Cheryl A. Maloney, D. Min are Alumnae of St. Catherine's Graduate Program in Theology/Spirituality. This article appears in the Winter 1997/98 Edition of SCAN — St. Catherine's Alumnae News.

"The idea that selling underwear has spiritual significance may strike many of us as strange, but for Tricia McMahon MAT '92 fitting women for bras at Bras for Body & Soul, the store she owns in Fremont, Calif., is "a healing ministry." A graduate of the master's in theology program, McMahon also performs liturgical dance and offers workshops on what she calls "body theology."

While she originally meant to provide products to breast cancer survivors, McMahon expanded her vision for the store to provide health-enhancing bras to all women. "Every woman deserves comfort and support, [and] the women I have met are so hungry for a comfortable bra. Nine out of 10, if not 10 out of 10 women hate shopping for bras, and they hate the bras that they find," she says.

Both Bras for Body & Soul, which McMahon co-founded in 1994 with Cheryl Maloney MAT '90, and the workshops she facilitates stem from McMahon's longstanding interest in the connection between body and spirit. "We say we are made in the image and likeness of God, but we don't really believe it," McMahon says. She hopes to empower others to learn, as she did, that "my earthly body is a part of my spirituality, and I don't have to get out of it or get over it."