GN group to hold cancer walk

Dan Glaun

The Great Neck Breast Cancer Coalition is taking the fight for a cure to the streets this month with its second annual walk to raise funds and breast cancer awareness.

Coalition president Laura Weinberg said she hopes to to raise between $15,000 and $20,000 to fight the disease at the Oct. 14 event. About 120 people participated in last year’s walk, which raised $12,000 to support the coalition’s survivor support services and research efforts. 

“It’s wonderful that we’re going to have a walk to sustain some of our really terrific programs,” Weinberg said. 

The walk will depart from the Great Neck Senior Center and make its way through Kensington. The event, which begins at 10:00 a.m., will feature speeches about the disease and offer literature discussing cancer prevention and early detection. Local artists will play music, and coalition board member Lisa Levine will lead participants in a pre-walk yoga stretch.

“It’s a great way to spread terrific information about prevention and raise awareness about breast cancer, and help prevent future generations from being diagnosed,” said Weinberg.

John Ryan, a Great Neck resident who organized the event, said that while the walk is designed to raise funds anyone is allowed to participate.

About 226,000 women will be diagnosed and 40,000 will die of breast cancer in the United States in 2012, according to a National Cancer Institute estimate. Although much rarer, breast cancer in men also takes a toll: about 2,200 men will be diagnosed and 400 will die.

Both diagnosis and mortality rates dropped from 1999 through 2008, according to the Centers for Disease Control. But breast cancer is still the most common cancer among women.

Since its founding in 1992, the coalition has offered programs that provide direct aid to survivors and engage the Great Neck community in cancer research. 

The coalition’s Lend a Helping Hand program is designed to help newly diagnosed patients cope with breast cancer by offering house cleaning, child care and other support services.

“We assist them with funding for if they need taxi rides to their doctor’s appointments, if they need meals… last year we paid for a thanksgiving dinner for one woman who was diagnosed and her family,” Weinberg said.

Another element of the coalitions work is its summer internship program for local students. Interns from Great Neck North and Great Neck South high schools did laboratory research at institutions including Tufts University School of Medicine, MIT and New York University, according to the coalition’s Web site.

“The student program has been very very successful,” said Weinberg. “They actually have said that [the program] has changed the direction of their lives.”

Weinberg, who has served as president of the coalition since 2001, said that her experience working against breast cancer expanded her understanding of the disease.

““I have been active for 19 years,” she said. “I’m not a survivor, but what got me really motivated 19 years ago was [that] several of my dear friends in Nassau County were diagnosed with breast cancer.”

“[I] found out that it’s not just a Long Island issue, it’s not just a New York State issue… it’s a national if not global issue,” she continued. “Not only should be a cure be found, but the causation and why are so many women getting this disease when they didn’t years ago?”

Share this Article