Five years after beating cancer, Continental support strong as ever
Anita Abood has been cancer-free for five years, but her work to raise awareness and money for the Susan G. Komen More Than Pink Walk is stronger than ever. She details how her Continental colleagues helped her in the weeks and months immediately after she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2016, and how they continue to show their support today.
As difficult as it was for me to find out I had cancer, I can tell you that it was also a wonderful experience because it brought a lot of employees together.
I never hid the fact that I was going through cancer treatments from anybody. Everybody needed to be part of what I was dealing with because I needed the support. It was a complete shock.
Once I came to terms with what was happening, people around me started to rally – telling me stories about their family members and struggles. I hadn’t gotten to know some people on that level. It was incredible. Some people would just bring me 7 Up because they thought I might be having a bad day.
I was at work every day except chemo days. Employees showed so much compassion. I could not have asked for a better support system, especially from the leadership team.
I raised a lot of awareness to the point I had employees come to me and say they went and had a mammogram and found a lump and caught it early.
That made me feel proud to know that my voice and experience was making a difference with the people I work with.
To say the people at Continental have been amazing is an understatement. They are so generous. For the last four years, I have done a lot of work with the Susan G. Komen Pink Walk. We’ve been the number-one fundraiser company in the northeast Ohio region.
Right now, I have $9,200 of our $10,000 goal. Last year, we raised $6,500 virtually. People are incredibly generous. They see and they react.
Jim Hill, the ContiTech CEO for North America, has been my number-one cheerleader. Even people in at our corporate team in Germany were very compassionate. They sent email and gifts. When you go through something like this and have that feeling that people around you care, it does make it much better. Much easier.
When we say, “For One Another,” which is one of our company’s core values, we really do mean it.
This is an amazing company to work for. I haven’t been here 16 years because I have nothing better to do. We care about our people and their families. It’s more than just a job, which is why I’m still here.
I encourage anyone who is looking for something different than what they’ve seen out there to join this company. We laugh every day, and we get the job done every day.
