10/23/2023
OUR FINAL MEETING: Thank you all so much for coming Oct 11th as we celebrate friendships and accomplishments in making a difference to cancer patients having a financial hardship during treatment.
We certainly have evolved over the years after starting out as a community advisory group for Dr Lisa Tito’s breast center! We became The CABbies when I presented to the group, the idea of fundraising after meeting a young breast cancer patient who was evicted after she was unable to work at Walmart during treatment. In my position as the oncology nurse navigator, I soon realized that there was no local, state or federal funding to assist cancer patients.
In 15 years, we expanded our services to include all cancers from Taunton to all of Southeastern Massachusetts. We have raised and granted over $350,000 to cancer patients in need.
In 2008 we planned our very first fundraiser PTNP in less than a month and raised $8,000.
How can we ever forget Lisa Tito volunteering us to paint the Elks function room the week before the event. Thank you John McCaul for being our first MC!
Thank you Robin from Robins Flower Shop and Darlene and LeeAnn Araujo of Araujo Farms, for donating the centerpieces PTNP and TOT.
I have purchased pens for all of you tonight to be a reminder to never forget “we made a difference”
As fundraising ideas expanded in our early years, we started selling Fight Like a Girl sweatshirts and T-shirts (thank you Stacey Arpin and also Debby Maloney at End of the Road Tees) and pink house keys from Manny’s hardware.
In the beginning, we focused on assisting breast cancer patients. After surgery, one of our members would deliver a fresh fruit bowl to them, and offer them words of encouragement.
We bought a chairlift for a patient as the cancer spread to her bones. We granted our own Make a wish…sending Joy and her son to Disney. Mary has run to the insurance company to pay someone’s car insurance when facing cancellation, so they did not lose their transportation to treatment. She also ran to banks to make car payments once again enabling the patient to continue going to treatment. We purchased gas cards. We purchased grocery cards for those facing food insecurities. At Thanksgiving and Christmas we sent them all grocery cards.
When approached by a cancer center social worker …. As a group of women, we rallied together to help a young mother with furnishing her new apartment after leaving a domestic violence situation while going through treatment.
We formed connections with oil companies, so when someone was in need of heat, they would fill their tanks and then send us the bill. They often gave us a really good rate as their part in helping the cancer patients.
We participated in Boston’s Strides Against Breast Cancer walks, Joanne Bonancas Breast cancer walks in Dighton and the Dighton Fire Associations 5K walks. We eventually held our own “Walk out Cancer” at Taunton high school many years later. Lisa Tito’s vision!!
We celebrated Survivorship learning how to fly fish at On Cranberry Pond, held ice cream Socials at the Elks. The ice cream and all of the fixings were donated every year by Dennis Da Silva from Frates.
We invited survivors from the community to be creative with Fifty Shades of Pink canvases which are still on display in the Thayer Bldg hallway at Morton Hospital on the way to mammography. Thank you Ed Correia and Whittenton hardware for three years in a row, donating all the canvases, paint and brushes and my son-in-law Joey Borges for custom making all the frames. And Dr. Thayer for letting us permanently hang them in the Thayer building.
Our hardest work, but most rewarding were our PTNP AND TOT. The community truly supported us, and our tickets would sell out within weeks. It is with these events that we established the junior CABbies: my grandchildren, Dylan and Kylie, Mary’s granddaughter, Savannah and were later joined by Renée’s daughter, Sarah.
Our TOT became a much awaited community event every spring, and was a huge hit. Our raffle prizes were legendary. The seniors would gather around and listen to the Eddie Lopes and his Villionaires playing during the event. We had New England Patriots football player Joe Andruzzi join us along with Miss Taunton, Miss MA,and local elected officials.
The TOT in 2019 before Covid in 2020 we raised over $20,000. Kathy and Cindy you outdid yourselves. Unfortunately that was our last TOT. fundraising for nonprofits was really affected after Covid. Restaurants were struggling with staffing issues and the price of food.
We had meat raffles, scratch ticket raffles, trivia nights and my favorite FF CALENDERS and I did not even get one !!!
We had some fun too…. Going to Araujo‘s for our POT nights! And how could we ever forget our first and only participation in the Taunton Christmas parade !!!!
For many years we were presented with a proclamation by Mayor Tom Hoye on behalf of the City of Taunton that October was Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
We helped to create community awareness about cancer and resources available by participating at Morton Hospital health fairs, community health fairs and Raynham pride day.
There were many generous donations also from the community: Morton Hospitals Lady Auxiliary, Greg and Barbara Seibert with Row for Life, Melissa Kupiec and her parents annual yard sales, the Easton Festival of Trees, the Dighton Garden Club Festival of Trees, Berkley Fire Dept, Bridgewater Fire Dept and the Dighton Fire Dept. Bristol County Savings. First request for a grant was a piece of cake. Well Mary W was ready to jump off a bridge with their requirements for the next one! Everything was getting harder.
Thank you to our waitress Cheryl, who has been with us from the beginning at the Sand Bar Grille.
We followed you wherever you went!
Thank you to the officers that I most drove crazy: Jean Dean, Mary Machado, Cindy Tokarz and my IT guru Robin Westberg.
But as a look around the room, I am remembering the impact each, and everyone of you have made to the commitment of our vision. I love you all.
Please remember Carol Perry, who we lost to breast cancer and keep in your prayers Jane Morton, who is on hospice.
And now, will someone make a motion to adjourn the meeting.
Meeting adjourned.
