Four breast cancer survivors will tell their powerful stories at the annual Celebration of Survivorship of the Adelphi Breast Cancer Program on Thursday, Oct. 3 at 7 p.m. The event, which will be held in the Adelphi Performing Arts Center, is free and open to the public but reservations are required.
The four women are Barbara Ehrenpreis (28-year survivor), Margaret Bores (30-year survivor), Estafany Carolina Garay (5½-year survivor) and Cindy Kay-Fink (25-year survivor).
Ehrenpreis was referred to the Adelphi Breast Cancer by the hospital where she was receiving chemotherapy. She joined a support group and her life took a different turn. After completing the group, Ehrenpreis volunteered to be a hotline volunteer. That led her to the decision to attend the Adelphi School of Social Work and completed a Masters Degree in Social Work. Today, she is a licensed Clinical Social Worker, working for NorthWell Health Hospice Care Network, providing support to hospice patients on the Palliative Care Unit at NorthWell Manhasset, as well as in their homes.
Bores played professional basketball for the New Jersey Amazons at age 17, opening for the Harlem Globe Trotters at the Renaissance Club in Harlem. In 1979, she refereed one of the first women’s college basketball games played at Madison Square Garden. After her four children graduated from college, she earned degrees in physical therapy psychology, and exercise physiology. While attending college, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and when she recovered, spent 10 years as a member of the Living with Breast Cancer Program, organizing and maintaining the lending library and teaching breast self-exam. She has been a breast health educator, speaking at colleges, factories, stores and community centers and for 10 years she taught the exercise program for the Arthritis Society.
Garay is a first generation American; her parents emigrated from El Salvador in 1980 and she was born here and grew up in Freeport. She earned a BA from Hofstra University and M.P.A (magna cum laude) from LIU Post. Today, she is director of the Town of North Hempstead’s Yes We Can Community Center in Westbury. She is responsible for programming and maintenance of the facility and oversees an afterschool program with over 50 children and a summer activities program with 80 children.
Kaye-Fink was 36 years old with two young children and a full-time job as a court reporter when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She reached out to the Young Women’s Support Group at the Adelphi Breast Cancer Program where she met with others in her situation and gained the support she needed to go on. In 2010 breast cancer returned. After a mastectomy, reconstruction and more chemo, today she is in remission and giving back by being a volunteer with the Adelphi program. She still meets monthly with the group of women from her original support group.
Doors open at 7 p.m. (raffles available) and the program begins at 7:30 p.m. Register by phone at 516-877-4325 or email breastcancerhotline@adelphi.edu.
