A former nurse, garden lecturer, and CEO of a breast cancer charity said she is “incredibly humbled” to be made an MBE.
Belinda Gray, the founder of Art for Cure, has been recognised in the New Year Honours list.
Mrs Gray’s charitable efforts has raised £1.4 million over the last 10 years.
The Suffolk woman was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2013 at the age of 46.
She then said: “I really didn’t know I was going to make it. The people I had known who had it had died. It was dreadful coming to terms with your own mortality.
“As a nurse, I was shocked that I didn’t actually recognise the reality of what to do when threatened with death. Without personal experience, you can’t fully understand the sheer terror of going through it.”
Mrs Gray added that her children and husband were her lifeline.
In 2014, Mrs Gray and her husband Alex transformed their home into a pop-up art gallery, where they raised £100,000, with artists donating 50% of their earnings and sculptors 30% to breast cancer charities.
This is how the Art for Cure charity was launched.
The founder of the charity said: “I feel very proud of what we’ve done.
"Having experienced breast cancer myself, I feel relieved that I came through it and in some way I can now help women in Suffolk as well as the National Research.
“I feel like I’ve made some contribution to the world. I turned my illness into something positive.”
Mrs Gray said that about a month ago she found out that she was going through the New Year Honours list process, and the results were set to be announced just before the New Year.
She added: “I was not allowed to tell anybody until the list had been made public.
“It feels amazing to become an MBE. I feel incredibly privileged.
“It is hugely important to me that this was not a single act. I have 12 people working on my team, and they are all volunteers. They help me run these big exhibitions in their free time.
“This recognition is very much part of a whole collaboration of people working towards something big and important.”
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