- December 15, 2025
Cynthia Black has never had a cancer screening. As an uninsured woman, she doesn’t see the point.
“I can get free screenings from some groups, but what do I do when the mammogram comes back positive?” she said.
Black knows many people in the community who face the same problem. Because of this, Black decided to make it her mission to connect uninsured cancer patients with treatment through her Phenomenal Woman program, which holds fashion shows to raise money to provide free cancer treatment.
Black also works in cooperation with other local health programs. On Thursday, Black presented four gift certificates for free cancer screenings, which were donated to her by Radiology Associates Imaging Centers, to Faith Coleman, co-founder of the Flagler Free Clinic, which provides health care to the uninsured.
“Phenomenal Woman focuses on support for those already diagnosed,” Black said. “But they’re all related. I had the certificates and wanted to be sure they went where they could be put to good use. That’s the main point.”
As for Phenomenal Woman, it is a combination of Black’s fight against cancer and her love of fashion. She plans to make it successful the same way she became successful as a runway model: by not backing down.
When Black was 22, she decided to leave her home in Ohio and move to California to pursue a career in modeling. She soon found that the industry was difficult — and costly — to break into.
Test shoots. Comp cards. Head shots. Black ticked the modeling necessities off on her fingers, a stack of costume bracelets jangling on her arm as she did. The first of those, a photo shoot whose purpose is only to create marketable images for current or aspiring models, can cost thousands of dollars alone. Sometimes, agencies will cover those costs for new models, but Black couldn’t catch a break.
“I kept getting door after door closed in my face,” Black said. “But I kept trying.”
One night, still agentless, she went to a fashion show to watch. A harried-looking producer walked by and asked if she was one of the models.
“Of course I said I was,” Black said. “And the rest is history.”
After a 35-year international career, entirely sans agency representation, Black retired and moved to Florida.
“I made a lot of money in those days,” Black said. “But I never thought I would one day be 62.”
That’s when she started to realize the seriousness of being uninsured. At the same time, she saw cancer all around her: her mother is a 30-year survivor of colorectal cancer, her father died of prostate cancer metastasized to the lung and brain. A close friend also died of the disease, and many others have it.
She decided to do something using her self-described “high-fashion flair.”
Phenomenal Woman hosts fashion shows that are a bit different from those Black is used to, in which homogeneous women stalk endless up and down a runway. Instead, Black’s shows feature cancer survivors who wear their own black, red and white clothing to signify diagnosis, treatment and healing.
Black donates 80% of money raised from her fashion show to Halifax Hospital to help fund free cancer treatment it offers once a month.
Her shows not only raise money for cancer patients, but they also help to empower them, Black said. When she was hosting her last show, in Daytona Beach, many women were reluctant to participate.
“They said, ‘We don’t’ want anyone to know we don’t have breasts,’” Black said. “‘We don’t want anyone to know we have a colostomy bag. We don’t want them to know we aren’t the whole woman.’”
After the show, though, the women began to open up. To help facilitate that, Black started a cancer support group called Circle of Caring, held 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. the first Thursday of every month, at the Flagler County Public Library. It is open to anyone: survivors, patients, friends and family members of cancer patients.
To Black, cancer is an epidemic that needs more attention. She’s doing whatever she can to attract that attention.
“I may be grassroots,” she said. “But I’m a force to be reckoned with.”
