Newsday, May 17, 2007

'Go Fly A Kite' For A Worthy Cause

Lauren Terrazzano
Life, With Cancer

If someone told me to go fly a kite, I might be a little, well, offended.

But this kite is slightly different. This kite will be flown on Cooper's Beach in Southampton over Memorial Day weekend. This one has a purpose and involves the whole family. This one has an agenda: To raise awareness for lung cancer research.

The sponsors: a group called Joan's Legacy, the Joan Scarangello Foundation for Conquering Lung Cancer.

Who was Joan, besides the face on the other end of the television camera, a producer who worked in TV and radio news for 20 years? She was 46 when she was diagnosed with this terrible disease and nine months later she drew her final breath from it.

I didn't know Joan, but I imagine that I would have liked her. In pictures she was smiling an indefatigable smile; the kind that immediately puts you at ease.

The organization also awards individual research grants, no small feat when so many grant recipients throw up their hands in despair because of stiff competition from larger government pools of money.

Let's face it: Although lung cancer is the number one cancer killer of men and women, it doesn't receive as much research funding as some others.

While the Joan Scarangello foundation focuses on the non-smoking population of lung cancer patients, it also tends to be all-inclusive.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I received a Joanie Award this year from the group for my journalism relating to lung cancer.

So when dozens of families amass at Cooper's Beach next weekend in the name of a kite, in the name of a cure, I will be silently cheering, the "go fly a kite" reference long since forgotten.

Individual flier donations cost $25 per kite; a family of flier donations costs $250 and includes up to five kites.

For more information, contact Kites for a Cure, the Joan Scarangello Foundation, Maureen Constantino, at 212-627-5500, extension 204.

Lauren Terrazzano, a tenacious Newsday reporter whose wide-ranging work documented lapses in society's treatment of the elderly and foster children and finally explored her own battle with lung cancer, died late Tuesday night at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan. She was 39. This was her last column.

Copyright 2007 Newsday Inc.