Before my grandma became known worldwide as “the model with two lakes for eyes,” she was a teenager working long shifts sorting tomatoes. Day in and out, she tossed what went bad and prized everything fresh. This eye for quality, I like to think, subsequently helped fuel the collaborations that marked her career covering magazines and serving as the face of fashion houses like Valentino, Versace, and Armani.

But to me, she was just Nonna. I remember how she’d transform her living room into a supermarket when my sister and I would visit so that we could shop together, using play money at the toy cash register to purchase the fresh fruit we’d have for snacks afterward. When she stayed with us, she’d have no qualms sending a tutor home early with the joke that she was there to teach us how to have fun. And when my mom was in the hospital a few years ago for surgery, it was my Nonna who started building the blanket fort we slept under—where I knew everything would be okay.

Nonna Isa was diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer in 2018, passing away on November 14, 2020. “Most ovarian cancer patients present with advanced-stage disease, unfortunately, due to the lack of specific symptoms and the lack of effective screening tools,” Dr. Gina Mantia-Smaldone of Fox Chase Cancer Center has said. In the UK, 58 women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer a day, and 21 of those women will die from it.

We need to change this. We need more research into early-diagnosis tools, better treatment outcomes, widespread awareness of the common symptoms, and an end to the shame around discussing gynecological health. The more ovarian cancer we detect early, the more women’s lives we’ll save.

Thankfully, the Lady Garden Foundation is working to bring about these changes—and I’m here today to ask you to help me support their mission.  In their survey of women in the UK, the Lady Garden Foundation found that 41% were too embarrassed to go to the doctor to talk about a gynecological issue. Meanwhile, a full 86% were unaware of the common symptoms of gynecological cancers. Even as decades of work to raise funds for breast cancer research have helped improve survival rates and made regular screenings nearly standard, ovarian and other gynecological cancers remain the “Silent Killers” due to ignorance around their early symptoms and our cultural reluctance to discuss gynecological health.

By raising awareness of this issue and educating women about symptoms that could help them get an earlier diagnosis, the Lady Garden Foundation is saving lives. They are also directly funding research into gynecological cancers and even purchasing equipment to aid in the diagnostic process at the Royal Marsden Hospital, a world leader in cancer care. I’m excited to be fundraising on their behalf and hope you’ll contribute to this organization whose work is not just saving lives today but also advancing the global movement of women’s health into the future.

Please donate whatever you can today to help fund this important cause benefitting all the women in our lives: our sisters, mothers, daughters, wives, and grandmothers like my Nonna Isa. Thank you!