October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, and Verona is home to one of New Jersey’s most active and far-reaching breast cancer support organizations: the Minette’s Angels Foundation. Through the group’s diverse initiatives, Veronanans can participate in events that unite our community and make a difference to so many area women.
Already this month, Minette’s Angels has draped the streetlights, trees, and signs of our town, as well as the downtowns in Cedar Grove, Caldwell, Kearny, and Whippany Park, in vibrant pink, as part of the group’s Pink Ribbon Campaign. The Pink Socks and Laces Project, through which student athletes sport pink accessories during themed games and competitions, draws crowds all month, with events like the Verona High School football game on October 2, featuring Eagles cheerleaders in pink bows alongside VHS cheerleaders, and the Mount St. Dominic Academy volleyball game in Caldwell on October 10. More dedicated events are planned, each one raising funds for the Angels and promoting breast health awareness and education. On October 2, the foundation presented a $15,000 donation to the Carol G. Simon Cancer Center at Morristown Medical Center.
This week another community tradition is happening: The 12th annual Real Panthers Wear Pink Breast Cancer Awareness Walk in Cedar Grove is scheduled for Thursday, October 15, from 6 to 8 p.m. at Panther Park (118 West Bradford Avenue).
The evening features a casual walk followed by food, live music, pink hair extensions, face-painting and glitter tattoo artists, bubble fun, carnival fun house, giveaways, and more entertainment. Donations will be collected at the gate, and the first 150 donations of at least $20 will receive a T-shirt.
All proceeds benefit Minette’s Angels, so the foundation can continue its tireless work supporting breast cancer patients, sharing survivor stories, and providing nursing/medical scholarships.
For the team behind Minette’s Angels — president and founder Ken McKenna (right, in Kearny), plus seven board members — furthering their reach is far from work. They are living out a mission, and with each new community they are able to reach, each patient they support, they are keeping alive the spirit of the woman who inspired the group’s creation 22 years ago, Minette Grosso McKenna. A Verona resident and mother of three, McKenna passed away from breast cancer in 2003. As a nurse, Minette devoted herself to those in her care. She continued that dedication by offering assistance and support to other cancer patients throughout her own long battle.
Just ask Michele Kiernan (pictured below, 2nd from left), board member and vice president, what’s new with Minette’s, as MyVeronaNJ did last week, and she will excitedly recount all the action lined up for the fall season, when the foundation proudly takes center stage (or field or court), literally, severals nights each week. She will share that Minette’s is now providing patient assistance in 110 communities in New Jersey, across every county but Cape May. She will list the requests by new schools or sports teams eager to wear pink socks at athletic events. No newcomer to the organization is turned down; every opportunity to spread the foundation’s message of support to new lives is taken up with enthusiasm and gratefulness.
The pink ribbons are eye-catching, but it’s the behind-the-scenes support Minette’s Angels provides that is truly life-changing for breast cancer patients and their families.
Kiernan understands this intimately, having spent her entire career as an RN at Saint Barnabas Medical Center, working with breast cancer patients. She even cared for McKenna, who was a close friend, when she was ill. Each new call the foundation receives — more than 8,000 women in New Jersey are diagnosed with breast cancer each year — is a chance to make things just a little bit easier for a woman undergoing treatment. They provide gift cards to local supermarkets, restaurants and movie theaters; home cleaning services, gas cards, flowers and feel-good indulgences such as manicures and pedicures. The foundation also donates regularly to area hospitals with breast cancer treatment centers, ensuring that patients receive the best possible care with specialty cryotherapy gloves and booties, blanket warmers, cozy robes, and more. They help upgrade facilities, MRI suites, and waiting rooms, and expand access to preventative screenings.
Minette’s Angels also offers annual scholarships to nursing students at Seton Hall University’s College of Nursing (McKenna’s alma mater), a scholarship to a high school senior from Verona entering the medical field, and an Impact Scholarship to a high school senior who has been affected by breast cancer.
Verona Breast Cancer Awareness Flag Raising
The Verona Township Council will come together with Minette’s Angels and WINGS Cancer Support, which provides free monthly programs and a supportive community for women facing cancer at any stage of their journey, and for a flag raising ceremony.
Date: Monday, October 19 Time: 6:00 p.m. Location: Verona Civic Center, 600 Bloomfield Avenue
Verona High School Cheer for a Cure
Date: Wednesday, October 28 Time: 6:00 p.m. Location: Verona High School, 151 Fairview Ave.