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WEEK of January 7, 2008
@BFS! archives

At BFS, Thinking “Pink” Adds Up to $1,200 for Breast Cancer Research

by Mary Frost

Reprinted with permission of Brooklyn Eagle Publications

The December 2007 Craft Fair at Brooklyn Friends School was more than a holiday shopping opportunity. For some participants, the fair was a way to help the greater community and honor a young woman remembered by many in Brooklyn Heights.

“One of our alums, Nancy Block-Zenna, passed away over the summer,” BFS Preschool Head Karen Luks told the Brooklyn Eagle. “She was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer in February 2005.”

Triple negative breast cancer is a newly discovered, virulent form of the disease unresponsive to most treatments. “The term ‘triple negative breast cancer’ is only about two years old—the medical community is just learning about it,” explained Karen.

Nancy Block-Zenna grew up in Brooklyn, graduated from Brooklyn Friends School, and went on to teach at P.S. 8 in Brooklyn Heights before moving to New Jersey,” Karen said. “She and my daughter grew up together; her mom is one of my best friends.

When Nancy’s family wasn’t sure if their insurance would hold out, good friends raised money to help the family with medical bills. “She had multiple treatments and surgery,” Karen said. It turned out that Nancy’s insurance covered the bills, so her friends decided to use the money they had raised to start a foundation to fight the disease.

To help, Malaak Compton-Rock, wife of comedian Chris Rock, held a fund-raiser at their New Jersey home. The “Peace, Love, and a Cure” event drew about 240 people and raised $230,000. “Chris and Malaak are very charitable people,” said Karen. “It was the start of the Triple Negative Breast Cancer Foundation (www.tnbcfoundation.org).”

The Knitting Connection

After Nancy’s death in August at the age of 37, Karen said she “just had to do something, so I started knitting. I bought pink wool; before I knew it I was knitting pink scarves.” She mentioned to some of the other teachers at Brooklyn Friends that she would be selling the scarves at the school’s annual Craft Fair to help raise awareness of Triple Negative Breast Cancer. All of a sudden, she recalled, “The kids were knitting, the parents and teachers were knitting. Our French teacher, Madame Marie-Christine Perry, organized her Middle School activity around pink scarves. Soon I started to get scarves piling up in my office. There were different kinds of scarves and different kinds of yarn, but they were all breast-cancer pink.”

While Karen initially had a modest goal for the sale of the scarves—“We’re not doing this to make a bundle,” she said—the response from the community was overwhelming. Every single scarf was sold at the Craft Fair, and more than $1,200 was raised for the Triple Negative Breast Cancer Foundation.

Also this week:
• Every Penny Counts: $2,286 Raised for Common Cents

Photos, from top: Preschool Head Karen Luks in her office with a basketful of pink scarves made by BFS students, teachers, and parents. Nancy Block-Zenna, Class of 1988, inspired Karen and other members of the BFS community to raise funds for Triple Negative Breast Cancer research. Below: BFS students modeling the scarves they knitted for the Craft Fair to raise funds for breast cancer research.