Reign Stevens turned her breast cancer diagnosis into a lifeline for survivors across Georgia
Reign Stevens introduces herself the same way every time she walks into a room, she is a breast cancer survivor. It is not a detail she buries or saves for the right moment. It is the first thing she wants you to know, because it is the reason everything else she does exists.
What the diagnosis revealed
Stevens is clear that her cancer journey was not one of isolation. She had a spouse, a support system and friends who rearranged their vacation days around her chemotherapy treatments. “My friends would come sit with me for six hours,” she said. “They would just sit with me.”
But she was aware that not everyone had that. The financial and emotional weight of a cancer diagnosis lands very differently on a single mother, and that reality stayed with her long after treatment ended. “If I was a single mother, I would have been homeless,” she said. “So I live my life as if I am walking in someone else’s shoes.”
That awareness is what led Stevens to launch Reign Over Cancer, a nonprofit organization that primarily serves single mothers navigating a cancer diagnosis, though its reach extends to any survivor in need. The organization connects people with resources, helps them understand available benefits and works to close the gap between what survivors need and what they actually receive.
Beyond awareness month
Stevens is not interested in reducing cancer advocacy to a color or a month. She hosts a birthday event each year to honor grassroots nonprofit organizations and cancer survivors who are doing the work without profit. She also makes sure the state of Georgia provides those organizations with formal recognition that can strengthen their eligibility for grants. “I know we dress up in pink,” she said. “But it is bigger than that.”
Part of what drives Stevens is the silence she sees among survivors. People downplay their struggles to avoid making others uncomfortable, often because the responses they receive make them feel as though they should simply be grateful to be alive. “That shuts us down,” she said. “I want you to communicate differently with individuals you know have gone through this journey.”
Stevens still struggles mentally from her own experience. The physical effects of treatment remain present in her daily life. But she speaks about all of it openly and on purpose, because she has seen what happens when she does. “When I enter rooms, nine times out of 10, someone is going to whisper, ‘I am a survivor too. I just do not like talking about it,’” she said. “That is why we do not receive the services we should receive.”
A Christmas tradition and a call for support
One of the programs Stevens takes the most pride in is an annual Christmas giveaway for children of cancer survivors. It is a small but deliberate act of care for families that often fall through the cracks of larger awareness campaigns.
She is also asking the public directly for support. Reign Over Cancer, she says, is the one thing she would ask people to get behind if she had a single wish. “For every problem, there is a solution,” she said. “If I do not know, I know somebody that knows somebody.”
Stevens frames her diagnosis not as a detour but as a direction she eventually had to accept. “I was angry at God for years,” she said. “And then I realized this is why I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Because I am here to be a voice.”
She ends with the same message she carries into every room. “You do not have to feel guilty for being here. But while you are here, live.”
To learn more or find resources, visit reignovercancer.org or follow @reignovercanceratl on Instagram and Facebook.