Of all the places the Johnson family from Sweden could have chosen to homestead and settle in the 1800s, it was the lure of the Gold Rush and Fairbanks, Alaska that proved irresistible. Five generations of Alaskans later and with a humongous extended family in the Fairbanks Community, the Johnson family stars aligned to produce one very committed, shining light we’re featuring in this edition of our Changemaker Spotlight.
Jacyn DeBaun was born and raised in Fairbanks and is a fifth generation Alaskan. She met and married her high school sweetheart and has been hockey mom-ing it up for over a decade when she’s not wearing her cape and making a profound difference across Fairbanks and the State of Alaska where cancer screening is concerned. So how did a former American Heart Association Development Director end up running a non-profit dedicated to breast screening and early detection you might ask…
One morning, at the youthful age of 36, Jacyn noticed a lump and like the smart human she is, immediately went to her doctor. Be like Jacyn. Unfortunately, her doctor’s referral clinic couldn’t get her in for three weeks, and words like ‘lump’ sit about as well in the back of your mind as they do in your seat cushion… for yourself as well as any family with which you happen to share the news. Raised by a 4th generation Alaskan, her mother wasn’t having it because she had a contact at the Breast Cancer Detection Center (BCDC) and they got her scheduled and screened almost immediately.
In an odd yet divine twist of fate, the lump itself was a totally normal bit of tissue and went away within a mere 3 days on its own, but just to be sure she kept her screening at BCDC who confirmed that the location of the lump had no cancerous tissue… BUT, her other breast had over six inches of cancer that had already spread to several lymph nodes. That cancer was undetectable by a traditional breast exam (palpation) and would very likely have been fatal had she not began her cancer journey to complete wellness and recovery that very afternoon.
Read this part out loud: Early screening saves lives… and Jacyn was very early. In fact, Jacyn was four years ahead of when mammograms are recommended!
After fully recovering, Jacyn went on to move from the American Heart Association position in Fairbanks, to Marketing & Development Director at BCDC to later taking over as Executive Director when the organization’s prior leader retired.
The Breast Cancer and Detection Center was established over 50 years ago by Alaskan Women, for Alaskan women. Household Alaska names like Nancy Murkowski and Mary Jane Fate with generational backgrounds came together over lunch to when they found out a close, shared friend had found a lump of her own but would have to travel out of state to get a mammogram, and those pioneer spirited women together said “that is just not good enough.”
In 2024, Aurora Integrated Oncology Foundation donated $10,000 to a capital campaign to help Jacyn and BCDC gather the remaining funds necessary for a brand new 36-foot mobile mammography unit that they take almost everywhere, even Dutch Harbor!
“It’s my job to be a light with the time I am given.” Jacyn said. “I know that without that early screening, especially the Mobile Mammography, many rural Alaska women feel like they are in a healthcare desert. So we go to them, and this work saves lives. I feel lucky every minute I get to have this kind of impact.”
As part of other fundraising efforts and to reinforce our mission of increasing access to care, AIOF also committed $5,000 to BCDC for workforce development. Jacyn’s lead mammography technician at BCDC was able to go out of state and attend important training toward offering diagnostic ultrasound to patients of BCDC.
“These funds were a directly responsible for increasing our capability and improving the future of our quality of care.”
Jacyn DeBaun, we salute you and people like you for making Alaska such a wonderful place to live, work and raise a family. Thank you for all you do, for your heart, and the difference you make for Alaska women!