Hadassah Breat Cancer Meeting

On Oct. 14, senior girls at the JFK High School, Plainview, and a team of volunteers from the Nassau Region of Hadassah met for an informative discussion about breast care and breast self-examination. Ruth Meador, RN, who was specifically trained by the American Cancer Society, Jacky Kobler, who has beaten breast cancer and Harriet Kesler, who acted as facilitator showed the girls the correct breast self-examination, answered all their questions and assured them that breast cancer need not be fatal if caught early.

Funds from a grant by the Richard A. Molin Foundation enabled Hadassah to give each girl a kit that has pertinent information on breast cancer, a plastic card to hang in the shower with instructions on the proper method of self-examination and a gel-filled model breast containing lumps.

For 10 years the Nassau Region of Hadassah has been active in promoting early detection with their Hadassah Cares - Check It Out! campaign, which brought mobile mammography vans to Nassau County and which urged all of their 17,000 members, their female relations and friends to have a mammography.

Hadassah continually collects signatures to present to legislators on the local and federal levels urging them to allocate more funds for breast cancer research. "We are women reaching out to other women to educate them and save lives," said Elaine Weiser, president of the Nassau Region. We are also founding members of the Long Island Breast Cancer Project.

Hadassah is the largest women's Zionist volunteer organization in the United States with over 350,000 members. Best known for hospitals, schools and youth rescue programs in Israel, the organization is equally active on the Amrican scene with Young Judaea Camps and Clubs. Education and activism are an integral part of Hadassah's agenda, particularly when women's issues are concerned.