For the past decade-plus, the Maurer Foundation has been holding its annual Pink Bowl Event. This year’s host location was Melville’s Bowlmor Lanes. This year also marked the quarter century mark for the foundation. Thanks to the exceptional attendance of more than 110 bowlers, upwards of $15,000 was raised this year for breast health education.
(Photo courtesy of the Maurer Foundation)
Pink Bowl was sponsored by Garden City Park’s Sperry Associates Federal Credit Union for the sixth consecutive year, a fact that Sperry CEO Kevin Healy was rightfully pleased by.
“We see the vital role that the Maurer Foundation achieves and that is teaching young adults in high school about breast health and self-diagnosis,” Healy said. “We here at Sperry are always proud to support their mission.”
Based in Melville, the nonprofit Maurer Foundation was established in 1995 by Dr. Virginia E. Maurer, a nationally recognized leader in the field of breast health education. A graduate of Queen’s University School of Medicine in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, she is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and the Royal College of Surgeons of Canada. Maurer is a prominent breast surgeon and breast cancer specialist. She has been in private practice since 1981 and currently maintains two offices in the New York area. The foundation’s mission is to save lives through breast health education that focuses on breast cancer prevention, early detection and healthy lifestyle choices.
This advocacy for better breast health is reflected in key statistics ranging from a drop in women smoking (24.7 percent in 1995 to 14 percent in 2017) and the rise of the 15-year breast cancer survival rate (80 percent as of 2017, up from 71 percent in 2005) to the decrease in breast cancer mortality (1 in 3759 people in 1999 to 1 in 1112 people in 2016) and the uptick of regular exercise (43.5 percent in 2008 to 54.1 percent in 2017). Maurer has become one of the country’s leading advocates for women’s health care. The Garden City resident is a member of the advisory board of 1 in 9, the Community Advisory Board of Holiday House and former member of the board of trustees of the Greenvale School. She has been a member of the Society for the Study of Breast Disease, the American Medical Women’s Association and the New York Metropolitan Breast Cancer Group. Maurer has two daughters and remains active in her role as Maurer Foundation founder and board member.
(Photo courtesy of the Maurer Foundation)
Families and friends enjoyed a fun-filled day with 29 teams competing to win the prizes. Sperry’s team “Lane of Credit” won the first prize for the highest team score of 673. “Homemade Jam” came in second with a score of 537. Best female Nancy Foran-Pinzon from Signature Bank and best Male James Hood from Nawrocki Smith won individual prizes with scores of 189.
