Despite rainy weather, nearly 100 volunteers gathered in the cafeteria of Division Avenue High School this past Monday morning to receive a supply of cancer surveys to be delivered to every home in Levittown.

This is the second delivery of these surveys, but because only 1,038 surveys of the 14,000 that were mailed out to residents in the 11756 zip code were returned to the health department, officials decided to take the personal approach by hand delivering the surveys to residents. The survey is similar to the one mailed out in July but it includes a box for residents to check if nobody in the household has cancer and a place where people can put any additional remarks. Organizers are hoping that the personal approach will keep people from thinking the surveys are junk mail and throwing them away.

The developers of the survey, which includes 1 in 9, the Long Island Breast Cancer Coalition, members of the Nassau County Legislature, and the state and county health departments, hope to be able to map cancer cases in Levittown with the results of the survey, thus possibly showing a common thread among those cases.

Volunteers who came out to help deliver the surveys included members of the Levittown Chamber of Commerce, the Levittown Fire Department, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Knights of Columbus, the Republican Club, The Israel Community Center, St. Bernard's Church, Kiwanis, students from East Meadow High School, Island Trees High School, MacArthur High School, and Division Avenue High School, and members of the PTAs from each of the schools in Levittown. Students in the culinary arts program at the Levittown Vocational Center provided refreshments for the volunteers.

Geri Barish, president of 1 in 9, and one of the developers of this survey and organizers of the event, told the volunteers, "What this is really about is the youth of America because if we don't find the causes and the cure for breast cancer there won't be a youth of America so I'm really proud that the high schools are here today." She thanked everyone for coming out despite the "lousy" weather and stressed that it is important for everyone, whether they have cancer or not to fill out and return the surveys to the health department. The surveys are confidential and will be mailed directly to the health department. Even people who returned the first survey are asked to please fill out the survey again and return it.

Barish stated, "The only way to find out if there are a lot of cases of cancer, or what we call clusters, is if we know what's happening in every single home." Barish explained that they will continue to send out these surveys until they get a large enough percentage of them returned to do a reliable mapping of Levittown. She said, "When we are done with Levittown then we are going to go onto Rockville Centre and we're going to go community by community until we know what is going on here on Long Island." She added, "Levittown is no different than any other community. Please understand that we're not standing on dynamite. I don't want people panicking because we're doing a survey. We're doing it because we need to get this information so that we can resolve some of the answers."

Levittown resident and Nassau County Legislator Dennis Dunne, one of the developers of the survey also thanked the volunteers for coming out to help. Dunne began the event when he decided to hand deliver all the surveys himself. As he put it the project, "snowballed" and became "a true community effort." Dunne told those who gathered to help, "I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. You are doing a wonderful, wonderful thing for our community and for the health of the people of Levittown."

One of the largest turnouts at the event was from the various schools in the community. When asked why they came out today, Jenny Sandler, a member of the Division Avenue Student Council, replied that when it was raining outside they had considered not coming but she and her friend, "decided to come for the people we know who have breast cancer."

Students from East Meadow High School who are members of LEAF (Legislation Education Advocacy and Fundraising), the first youth chapter of 1 in 9 also came out to help with this community effort. According to Valerie Bluth, a member of LEAF, "We are all just very motivated to be part of the organization because we have been affected, not directly, but indirectly by cancer, whether some people have family members or friends that were affected. It affects everyone around us so we just wanted to come out and make other people aware and educated about all forms of cancer, not only breast cancer, and just hope that it can be prevented in the future and that we can find the cause."

Volunteers had until the end of the week to deliver their supply of surveys and residents have until Feb. 28 to get them back to the health department. If anyone did not receive a survey or needs additional surveys, there will be additional surveys available at the two libraries, the VFW, the American Legion, and at the Israel Community Center. Residents who need surveys can also call Legislator Dennis Dunne at 571-6215. Everyone is asked to please do all that they can to help find the cause of cancer in the area by returning their surveys.