They’re painting the town teal!
An organization that raises awareness and funds to fight ovarian cancer cut the ribbon at its first office and community center in Windsor Terrace on Aug. 1, and the group’s creator says she is thrilled to finally have a space where survivors and their loved ones can come together to support one another.
“Just being in Brooklyn and finally having a place for cancer survivors, friends, and family to call home was very touching,” said Pamela Esposito-Amery the chief executive officer and co-founder of Tell Every Amazing Lady — also known as Teal — who has been running the organization out of her Park Slope home office for seven years.
Esposito-Amery said she started the organization with her sister Louisa, who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2007 and passed away four years later, and continues to keep it running in her honor. Since then, Teal has organized annual walks and runs to raise money for cancer research, spread the word about the disease’s symptoms and risk factors, and created a community for local survivors and their families, Esposito-Amery said.
But until now, the group did not have a space of its own. The new center will allow the organization to help more people directly affected by ovarian cancer, Esposito-Amery said.
“It’s really allowing us to offer more programs and give back more to survivors and their family members,” she said.
Espotito-Amery, along with Councilman Rafael Espinal (D–Bushwick) — who lost his mother to ovarian cancer — and a whole host of teal-clad volunteers celebrated the opening by marching with flags and banners to promote the organization’s upcoming seventh annual walk and run on Sept. 12.
The group carved a trail from Bartel-Pritchard Square at the southwestern tip of Prospect Park to the freshly-painted space at 16th Street and 10th Avenue.
The furnished community space will offer workshops, community-building activities, and educational resources, Espotito-Amery said — a group of cancer warriors already met up on Aug. 10 for a writer’s workshop, and the center is hosting a question-and-answer session with a genetics counselor on Aug. 12 to educate attendees about the hereditary risks of ovarian cancer.
Esposito-Amery says she is heartened by all the volunteers who helped out in launching the center, and was touched by the number of people who chipped in by scrubbing floors, hanging blinds, and painting the teal sanctuary.
“It was great to see it already be a community,” she said. “Because the community helped us put it together.”
