KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Clara Reyes knows what it is like to hear the word cancer. She is a thriving breast cancer survivor.

As president of the Coalition of Hispanic Women Against Cancer, she is aggressively trying to raise awareness of breast cancer and early detection in the Hispanic community.

"The most important thing, I think, is that we can do it bilingually. There are a lot of people who don't understand English very well, so to talk to them in English, they don't really understand. Talk to them in Spanish and you tell them exactly what it is," Reyes said.

Providing those resources and bridging the language barrier is possible in large part due to a grant from Susan G. Komen for the Cure Kansas City. The grant also provides mobile mammography to the Hispanic community once a month.

Reyes said she knows breast cancer can be scary, but she believes education is key to beating the disease. She said some of that is overcoming misconceptions.

"I tell people I have cancer, and people come to me and tell me, 'You know, Clara, I have cancer, but I didn't tell anybody because it is a punishment from God, and I didn't dare tell anybody.' And I tell them it's just like any other illness, you just have to fight it," Reyes said.

More Information:

Free Mammogram Information

Komen Kansas City