At the MaryEllen Locher Breast Center, the mission is straightforward: remove barriers, provide access, and ensure every patient receives compassionate care, regardless of their ability to pay. For more than a decade, Covenant has been a committed partner in making that mission possible, and the impact reaches far deeper than dollars donated.
The center was born from a dream. MaryEllen Locher envisioned a warm, welcoming, all-inclusive breast center, a place where a woman facing a breast cancer diagnosis wouldn't have to travel all over town searching for care. Tragically, she passed away from breast cancer in 2005, never seeing her vision come to life. But in 2006, that vision became reality at the Glenwood location, and it has grown steadily ever since.
"No one should ever be turned away because they don't have the ability to pay for their care." - Brittany Hennessee, Market Director of Breast Services, CommonSpirit – Memorial Hospital.
Today, the center operates four brick-and-mortar locations in Chattanooga, Hixson, Ooltewah, and Georgia, as well as two mobile mammography coaches that bring screenings directly to workplaces and communities.
"Our goal is to eliminate that barrier of access and just bring it to you, making it convenient," says Brittany Hennessee, "We have found so many breast cancers by just bringing the mobile coach." The coaches are designed with working women in mind, women who simply can't take a day off to travel to an appointment. So, the appointment comes to them.
Funds raised through Covenant's Women of Covenant initiative go directly toward mammograms for uninsured and underinsured women right here in our community. "People donate and they think, what is this being donated toward?" Brittany notes. "But it is actually sitting right here in the community for mammograms."
For Brittany, this work is personal. She returned to school in her thirties to pursue X-ray technology after feeling called to a different kind of service — inspired in part by her grandmother's own experience with breast cancer. She started at the center as a technologist and worked her way up to her current role as market director. "I love patient care," she says. "Sometimes you'll see me going back over there and doing mammograms just because I need a break from meetings."
The partnership between Covenant and MaryEllen Locher Breast Center is more than a charitable arrangement, it's a shared conviction. "We might be a totally different kind of organization," Brittany reflects, "but we're unified in caring about people's health. Covenant coming to us and asking our mobile coaches to come in, to speak for Women of Covenant, it shows that we're unified in beating breast cancer and believe that early detection saves lives."
That belief, grounded in firsthand experience, drives everything. Brittany has seen what diligent annual screenings can do: cancers found at the earliest stages, when treatment options are widest and outcomes are best. She's equally candid about the myths that keep women from screening. "Somebody in every family had to be first," she says. "You don't know if that's you."
As we look toward 2026 and beyond, Covenant remains dedicated to this partnership — and to the simple, powerful idea at its core: that access to care isn't a privilege. It's something we build together.
.png)
