by Rita Devlin
Since childhood, Jeanie Linders has wanted to make a difference in the world. Even so, when this South Bay resident began writing Menopause the Musical, she could not have imagined the number of lives she would touch with her work.
Linders’ office is a light, cheerful place with many shelves adorned with photographs of loved ones and fans. Two Coton de Tulear dogs, Maddie and Moxie, vie for attention while Linders edits a poster featuring the Menopause the Musical characters wishing their good friend a happy 60th birthday. The phone rings; Linders ignores it. This does not look like the office of a woman who runs a production company and a nonprofit organization. Rather, it looks like it might be an extension of her home.
Linders exudes an energy that says she is continuously thinking and putting solutions together. To help harness that energy, she surrounds herself with a 25-person staff in the Winter Park office and with another staffed office in every city where Menopause the Musical has a presence.
The key to accomplishing all her projects, she says, is a staff of good people who understand how to get a job done and, more importantly, who understand Linders’ need for a stress-free environment.
She has rheumatoid arthritis, which flares up under stressful conditions and has already caused the necessity of the surgical replacement of both knees and quite a few knuckles.
Fingering a few wisps of her red pixie-cut hair, Linders said, “When my doctor told me he needed to replace my right shoulder, I told him I was dyeing my hair red, and left his office.”
Her blue eyes twinkle as she laughs, but she is serious about not letting her body slow her down.
In 2001, Menopause the Musical debuted in Orlando in a perfume shop Linders converted into a theater. Since then, nearly 9 million women in a dozen countries have seen the show, which features 25 parodied songs, such as My Thighs to the tune of My Guy. The show’s premise: After four very different women meet at a Bloomingdale’s lingerie sale, they spend the rest of the day shopping together while teasing and consoling one another about various aspects of being a woman and aging.
South Bay resident Jeanie Linders (center, seated) and her staff members regularly volunteer their time for local causes like Give Kids The World.
After Linders began producing the show in other cities, she received an e-mail from Janet Rigdon, executive director of the South Carolina Ovarian Cancer Foundation. Rigdon, who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2000, wanted her friends to be able to enjoy the show and have a laugh in the face of their fight against cancer. No show was scheduled to open in South Carolina, so Linders treated Rigdon and several other women to a weekend in Orlando, where they saw the show and visited theme parks.
“Jeanie is the epitome of women helping women,” Rigdon said. “She has a generosity about her spirit that is unequaled.”
Linders believes synchronicity — the moment when seemingly unrelated events come together in a way that makes perfect sense — plays a large role in her life. Her relationship with Rigdon proved to be one of those events.
Kim Whitehurst, vice president of Linders’ production company and executive director of the Jeanie C. Linders Fund, said, “Janet introduced us to the need for research and education on ovarian cancer.”
When Rigdon asked Linders to help raise awareness for ovarian cancer, Linders did not hesitate. After she learned that ovarian cancer is called the “silent killer” and the primary warning sign is an expanding waistline, which most women experience as they age, Linders began to include information about ovarian cancer in Menopause the Musical programs.
The positive response to that information led to the creation of me* Magazine, which replaced the programs and includes articles about women’s health and lifestyle issues.
“I’ve always been a champion of people I’m connected to,” Linders said.
She knew she could use Menopause the Musical as a platform to raise money to help not only women with ovarian cancer, but women in need around the world. In 2005, Linders founded the Jeanie C. Linders Fund, a nonprofit organization that “offers support to women in the areas of business development, arts and culture, personal growth, health issues, and education.”
The efforts of JCLF are supported by proceeds from souvenir sales at Menopause the Musical performances, as well as sales of hot flash fans sold by the Fan Brigade for $1.
“By buying a fan for one dollar, our audience is able to make a difference and help give other women a hand up,” Linders said.
In September 2005, Linders launched Menopause the Musical Out Loud: Breaking the Silence of Ovarian Cancer Tour, which worked with local ovarian cancer chapters to raise nearly $500,000 for research and awareness during the 2005-06 tour. Rigdon does a lot of speaking and fund-raising, but rarely has the opportunity to reach the numbers of women brought in by the show. In Charleston, S.C., throughout the course of three nights, nearly 7,000 women received educational materials about ovarian cancer. The next tour launches in September 2008.
According to Linders, JCLF has opened many other doors for her to help women.
JCLF recently made a three-year commitment to The Joyful Heart Foundation to finance camps that allow sexual-assault victims to swim with dolphins as part of their active recovery process.
JCLF finances three groups of women in the African country of Kenya to help them with costs for setting up and sustaining businesses. For Linders, the trick has been to find out which business models actually work for each group of women. Since her ideas sometimes include grand plans to build factories that provide day care and health facilities, Linders finds it is important to go to Africa to meet with the women and find out what is realistic for the way they live and work. These women now support themselves by such means as raising and selling seedlings to the Forestry Department for Kenya’s reforestation efforts, or raising chickens to sell, along with eggs, in the local market.
Kim Whitehurst (back, second from left) and South Bay resident Jeanie Linders (back, sixth from left) take a break from picking tea leaves with the Kagunda Arahuka Women Group in Kenya, Africa.
Closer to home, Linders is excited about plans to build affordable housing for women in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans as part of JCLF’s The Yellow Brick Road Project. The first phase of the project involves building 12 houses for women in a neighborhood that is already slated for a new grocery store. Linders believes the neighborhood atmosphere is crucial to give these women a sense of home and order in a post-Hurricane Katrina world.
What else is in the future for Linders? Her work with Menopause the Musical and JCLF provide Linders with ongoing opportunities. In addition, she is working on two books and a nationwide Spanish language tour of Menopausia El Musical. She still has a lot of lives to touch.
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