FRIENDS OF MARA GALATY UPDATE

Issue No. 1: SEMI-ANNUAL FRIENDS OF MARA GALATY UPDATE
--------------------------------- March 2008-------------------------
Subjects in Issue: Mara’s 39th Birthday and the Mara Fund


Dear friends of Mara, this is the first semi-annual email/blog update on remembering and perpetuating the work of Mara Galaty through personal activities and the Mara Fund. We are sending it to friends who wrote and supported her, as well as those who have given to the Mara Fund.

We are also using this Blog as a continuing site for communicating with Mara’s friends. You may have noticed that David Mees, Mara’s partner, has been giving us precious new glimpses into Mara’s life through wonderful pictures and stories on the Blog. If you haven't reviewed the site recently you may wish to do so. If you are reading this for the first time on the Blog, you may wish to send Carol Galaty (at the e-mail listed below) your name and email address so that you can receive these semi-annual updates, by e-mail, as well as any interim notice that we may send out on an exceptional basis.

Friends of Mara Updates will provide information about activities carried out in Memory of Mara, updates on the Mara Fund, and may include references to new material on the Mara Blog and stories about Mara. This Update includes below:
--Mara’s Birthday
--The Mara Fund

MARA’S BIRTHDAY

Many of you may recall two suggestions relating to Mara’s birthday. One was an idea for an annual celebration proposed by a friend of hers, and the other was for a 40th birthday celebration requested by Mara.

1. One of Mara’s friends suggested on the Blog that each year on Mara’s birthday, March 29th, her friends do something special for someone else that they would not have done otherwise. Mara liked this idea.

This year on March 29th, 2008, is Mara’s 39th birthday. For those of you who want to celebrate it by doing a good deed for someone, we would love to know about what you did. We hope that sharing this information will help Mara’s friends to network, and do projects.

So, we encourage you to let us know what you did by emailing a brief write up to maragalatyupdates@gmail.com with a subject line reading “In Honor of Mara’s Birthday 2008” for posting on Mara’s Blog with the following information:
a) what you did and for whom;
b) where and when you did it;
c) what the results were; and
d) who you are (your name), where you live and how you knew Mara.

The activities you undertake in memory of Mara can be done alone or as a group. We encourage you to use your creativity. Here are a few ideas that some of her friends have come up with…

• Join some of Mara’s friends in the Washington area who are collecting items for the people of Darfur and get together on March 29 for a Mara party during which the items will be packed and boxed by emailing Kim at satinkubler@starpower.net.
• Participate individually or put together a group to participate in a fund-raising walk in honor of Mara. One of Mara’s high school friends has put together a family team for the two day, 39 mile, Avon Walk for Breast Cancer named “LivFreer 4 Mara Galaty.”
• Go to a shelter, a prison, or a refugee camp and offer your expertise, for example by conducting a workshop.
• Find a charitable website like www.kiva.org where you can “sponsor a business” and help a unique entrepreneur in the developing world through a “microloan”.
• Donate some or all of the proceeds from something you have made and can sell to the Mara Fund, such as the wonderful pendants made by Mara’s step-mother, Debra.
• Set up a group clean-up activity or a group donation in honor of Mara. For instance Mara’s friends at the State University of New York (SUNY), both in Albany and the Amman office, just collected money, bought toys and took them to an orphanage. The arrival of the visitors bearing gifts was celebrated by dancing children! You may soon find pictures of this on the Blog.

2. Mara always said her goal was to reach the age of 40. When she learned that she was only going to live to the age of 38, she said that she would still like people to celebrate her 40th birthday and have a blast! We are beginning to think about Mara’s big 40th birthday celebration. Here are two ideas that have been suggested but need planners and implementers:

• Get the Uptown or Avalon Theater in Mara’s old Washington DC neighborhoods to designate a film showing on March 29th as a fund-raiser for the Mara Fund. Mara’s friends and friends’ friends, would afterward have drinks, and eat cake and ice cream (donated by local businesses).
• Organize a party in Italy in conjunction with group-rates at a hotel or villa for individuals to join for a week-end, or week-long stay. A friend from Mara’s breast cancer group did something similar a few years ago in Tuscany for her 40th birthday, and Mara loved and wanted to replicate it for her 40th.

We would like to hear your ideas, but ask you in putting them forward to include some practical suggestions for who could carry them out and how. Please email them, with a subject line reading “Suggestions for Mara’s 40TH” to maragalatyupdates@gmail.com.

THE MARA FUND: To Combat Shame Associated with Breast Cancer

As most of you know, Mara was a strong champion on behalf of breast cancer patients and the need to be vocal about the disease without shame. The Mara Fund was, therefore, set up to perpetuate Mara’s work as well as her memory by supporting activities in countries where shame is the major obstacle to early detection and treatment, targeting under-privileged communities in less-developed countries -- the type of place where Mara was active.

The Mara Fund will strengthen a segment for civil society in countries where citizens do not have a tradition of organizing themselves around a cause. The Fund will promote the local emergence of breast cancer survivor networks in these countries in order to spread the message that cancer should not be a cause for shame, that symptoms should be immediately checked out, and that survival rates go up dramatically when earlier diagnosis takes place. Using photographs of and stories about Mara Galaty, who was “un-embarrassable” when speaking of her fight with breast cancer, Komen’s Mara Fund will help cancer patients overcome shame and fear.

To give the Mara Fund permanence, it has now been established as permanent sub-division of the Komen for the Cure’s new division called “The Global World Fund” that was just created to address international issues. Now the Mara Fund’s existence and mission will not be lost as it is an integral part of the fund-raising efforts of the Komen for the Cure and funds donated by Mara’s friends and family will be supplemented continually though the years from the general funds raised by the Komen for the Cure.

Susan G. Komen for the Cure is a strong organization. It began in 1982, and has made enormous progress in the battle against breast cancer. Generous support from its donors has helped it invest more than $1 billion to date in its promise to save lives and end breast cancer as a worldwide killer. Since the establishment of the Mara Fund as part of Komen, over 210 of Mara’s friends and family have made contributions to the Mara Fund and over $43,000.00 has been raised. We hope that these numbers continue to grow as family, friends and strangers see the Mara Fund as an important part of Komen for the Cure’s global battle against cancer!

The Mara Fund, under the management of experts at Komen, is just now developing its action infrastructure and projects. Future additions of the Mara Galaty Update will be able to report on the projects being initiated and supported by the Mara Fund and later updates will report on the results of projects underway.

NOTE: We are not giving out this email list to any one, or any other organization. However, if you wish to be REMOVED from this email list please email: MaraGalatyupdates@gmail.com with a subject line reading “Please REMOVE my Name” and you will be removed from the list.