Meet Our Founder

Rita Jones is a Los Angeles native, mother of three, and bonus mom to 1. She spent 27 years working at The University of Southern California, in the Department of Anthropology as the Program Director. A year after retiring, she was diagnosed with breast cancer in October of 2021. With no symptoms and regular mammograms that didn’t catch it, she felt like the entire system had failed her.

In the middle of Chemo, after feeling like she did not have the resources she needed to navigate through that stressful time, she decided to be that comfort to African American women in her community. She researched the mortality rate of black women who have Breast Cancer and learned they are dying at a disproportionate rate compared to other groups of women. Rita made it her mission to figure out why this rate gap exists, and strive to provide women with the resources needed to change those statistics.

Auntie Ruby's Daughters Foundation is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization focused on lowering the mortality rate of African-American women in Los Angeles County. Named after her mother Ruby who acted as a support system and Auntie to all of those around her, Rita felt if her Mom were living she would know exactly what to do. ARD Foundation strives to know just what to do to help US.

Our goal is to encourage early detection of breast cancer, provide resources to support women’s journeys, create safe spaces for women to discuss detection and preventative measures, as well as empower and restore confidence for current and post cancer/chemo patients.