Monterey will soon be home to a new state-of-the-art breast cancer facility, thanks to some women who beat the disease.

Nancy Porteous-Thomas can''t seem to escape her reputation as a breast cancer activist--which is fine by her. Hopeful donors, eager to contribute money to the soon-to-be-built Breast Care Center, seek her out, checks in hand. So do women who have recently been diagnosed with breast cancer, or women who have a friend, a sister or a mother with the disease.

"It happens to me all the time," says the 51-year-old founding president of the Breast Cancer Action Group. "When I do my shopping, when I do my banking."

It''s quite a contrast to what Porteous-Thomas experienced only four years ago, when local doctors diagnosed her.

"I felt very alone," she remembers, sitting cross-legged in the sun in her Carmel living room. "At that time I knew no one who had breast cancer. Even as recently as ''97, I knew no one."

A nurse herself and an active community volunteer, Porteous-Thomas says she felt totally isolated--and shocked at feeling so alone.

She has nothing but accolades for the doctors at the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula (CHOMP), whom she saw often during her five-month treatment. But she wished there was one place she could have found out about all of the resources, treatments, counselors and support groups available for breast cancer patients.

"The part that was missing was the coordinated approach," she says.

Through her own efforts and help from the community, Porteous-Thomas is about to get her wish. An empty building at 1035 Cass in Monterey is being remodeled to house CHOMP''s Central Coast Breast Care Center. The $2.4 million project will open its doors in January 2002.

Through CHOMP, Porteous-Thomas found a handful of other breast-cancer survivors, "really passionate survivors," she says. In 1998 the women began meeting regularly over coffee to talk about their experiences and outreach activities and to pool resources for other women in the community. These were the founders of the Breast Cancer Action Group of the Monterey Peninsula, now a local nonprofit. The original activists came from diverse professional backgrounds--in law, education, public health and nonprofits; they spanned the socio-economic charts from low to high income; and they lived in different cities, from Salinas to Carmel. One of their ambitious goals was to develop a single-site comprehensive breast center for the community.

"CHOMP had at that time a community focus group, and so we decided to float that by them," Porteous-Thomas remembers. Their timing was perfect, says CHOMP spokeswoman Nancy Gere.

"We had been looking at the same idea," Gere says. "We had been looking at the potential of bringing together a breast cancer center that would coordina-te care better. It was a nice partnership."

In November 2000, after extensive studies, CHOMP gave the center the green light.

The new center''s medical director, Dr. Pamela Craig, understands the isolation and confusion breast cancer patients face.

"Here I was, a specialist in the field, but when I heard the news I really did cry," says the surgeon, who seven years ago was diagnosed with breast cancer. "But after you get over the initial shock, you need a game plan. You need to know the pros and cons of each treatment, and need to be able to say, ''this is what I''m going to do next.''"

After finding a lump in her left breast, Craig had a mammogram at one clinic, then had to visit a second clinic for a biopsy and a third for surgery. She would have liked to have diagnosis, treatment and all the specialists involved under one roof, she says.

Soon, she''ll be sitting at the helm of such a comprehensive facility. The center will be equipped with state-of-the art technology, and will look more like a day spa than a doctor''s office.

"It''s going to feel soothing, comforting, welcoming, warm, soft, feminine--those are the adjectives we gave to the designers," she says. "We want to make sure the arms of the chairs are very soft, because when you are waiting in a gown, you want to feel protected." Soothing music will play in the waiting rooms, and refreshments will be served. Even the bathrooms will feel like home.

"I remember sitting in this cold, sterile bathroom, thinking, ''Oh my God, I have cancer,''" Craig says. "We''ve talked about every detail."

Craig describes the process from diagnosis to treatment as a journey. So it''s fitting that the center will have a "nurse navigator" on staff, someone who will assess each patient''s needs and bring support--in the form of literature, counselors or even a hot cup of tea--to the patient.

Jackie Pierce, 43, also a former Breast Cancer Action Group president, says the new center sounds like the kind of setting she wished for when she was diagnosed in 1997. Her doctors at CHOMP encouraged her to get a second opinion, so she took off to the University of Washington, where her brother worked as a fellow.

"When you get diagnosed with cancer, or when you find a lump, generally you end up in a physician''s office. That generalist sends you to a surgeon, that surgeon takes out the lump, then you might visit a medical oncologist [for chemotherapy] and a radiologist. It''s all very linear."

The Breast Care Center, she says, takes a more holistic approach.

"The emphasis is on bringing all the specialists and all the options to the patients. It''s like the spokes on a wheel with the patient at the center."

Under Pierce''s presidency in 2000, the Breast Cancer Action Group established an endowment as a way to show its commitment to the project and to help fund the center. The group pledged to raise a minimum of $25,000, and has received countless donations from local corporations and individuals.

Last year Saks 5th Avenue''s "Fashion Targets Breast Cancer" gala event raised $15,000 for the endowment. This year''s kick-off event on Oct. 17 raised more than $30,000, Pierce says, all of which will go directly to the new center.

"It''s really for all of us women," she says, raising her arms in a victory V. "Hey, we did it."