Mary Fanaro knows about choices. She also knows how to throw some of the best parties ever.

She was one of the biggest event planners in Hollywood when she chose to walk away.

“I was at this huge, fabulous party I had thrown when I looked around the room and went, ‘This is great and I don’t want to do it anymore.’ ”

Her first challenge was taking her impressive party organizing skills and figuring out a way to use them for good. She came up with “OmniPeace,” a T-shirt company that would give its profits to help end extreme world poverty.

That turned out to be the easy part. Two weeks before she was about to launch her new company, Mary was in her gynecologist’s office hearing shocking news.

“I’m pretty sure you have ovarian cancer,” he told her.

“I couldn’t believe it,” she still looks back in disbelief. “Don’t older people get that? Women in their 60s and 70s?”

“How old were you?” I asked.

“40.”

Seems to me that’s where most people make a choice. Do you stick with your plan to save the world or focus on saving your own life?

Not Mary. She chose to do both at the same time. Was she nuts? Her own doctor told her, “Just write off the next year of your life.”

Instead, Mary got a new doctor and a new plan. She did her grueling rounds of chemotherapy and continued to build her company.

“What was it like to fight poverty and cancer at the same time?” I wanted to know.

“It was a really beautiful thing,” Mary said with a smile I could hear over the phone.

“Beautiful?” I wondered. “That’s not the first word I would think come to mind,” I said.

“Look, when I started the company I came up with the slogan, ‘Can Fashion Save Lives?’ ” Mary explained. “The truth is the company saved my life. It gave me purpose. It meant I had to get out of bed. I could focus on the kids I would be helping in Africa rather than my own challenges.”

Funny how things work out. Mary started the company to change her life.

Turns out cancer did that for her, giving her a crash course in focusing on people and things that are truly important, eliminating the rest.

“Cancer changed my life; the company saved it,” she says best describes her year.

It’s a prescription she passes onto you or anyone who is facing health challenges or hard times. “There is no doubt there is healing in helping others and being of service,” she firmly believes. “It’s a powerful medicine they don’t serve up at any hospital.”

She certainly has the story to back up her claim. She’s now in her fifth year of being cancer-free. OmniPeace has grown beyond Mary’s wildest dreams. They’ve built seven schools in three African countries.

What started as a T-shirt company is about to expand into shoes, apparel and headwear.

And when it does, you can bet there will be a big party. After all, that’s what this former Hollywood event planner knows how to do best. That, along with saving lives, including her own.

Daryn Kagan is the creator of DarynKagan.com. She is the author of “What’s Possible! 50 True Stories of People Who Dared to Dream They Could Make a Difference.”