 |
|
Second Annual Barbara Ann Cohen Katz Memorial Tribute Dinner Save The Date Saturday, October 4th, 2008
|
Please join us for a Memorial Tribute Dinner marking the one-year anniversary of Mom's passing, to help raise much needed funds to support the excellent work of the Accelerated Cure Project for Multiple Sclerosis
Art Mellor and Melissa O'Shea at Inaugural Barbara Ann Cohen Katz Memorial Tribute Dinner 2007 with Co-Chairs Debra Lynne and Nancy Katz-Eder
On Saturday, September 15th, together with our generous presenting sponsor, The German Wine Society of New York, we held the inaugural event, a Memorial Tribute Dinner, at the Peking Duck House in New York’s midtown, to launch The Barbara Ann Cohen Katz Memorial Fund to honor our mother, marking the one year anniversary of her passing and to benefit The Accelerated Cure Project. It was a fabulous night. We ate great Chinese food, drank fabulous German wine, laughed, and celebrated mom’s very interesting life. We raised nearly $35,000 and donations are still coming in!
Thank you to all who attended the event, bid on the auction, pledged and supported this important cause in our mom’s memory. We would especially like to thank Bob Gutenstein, President of The German Wine Society of New York, without whose efforts to establish the Fund this night would not have been possible. And we would also like to thank our wonderful silent auction sponsors: AirTran, Ritz-Carlton-St.Thomas, Ritz Carlton-Amelia Island, Scottsdale Plaza Resort, Quality House Wines & Spirits, and Rocking Horse Cafe.
Together with The Accelerated Cure Project, we want to be part of the effort to identify the cause/s and therefore a cure for Multiple Sclerosis so that we can put an end to the suffering that mom and others have had to endure. Wouldn’t it be amazing to say, that in our lifetime, Multiple Sclerosis was a disease of the past!
With heartfelt thanks on behalf of our mom,
Debra and Nancy, Loving Daughters of Barbara Ann Cohen Katz
For more information about The Accelerated Cure Project for MS, please click here.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Barbara Ann Cohen Katz Memorial Fund
In Memory of Our Mother
Established With Love by her Daughters
To Support Curing Multiple Sclerosis by Determining its Causes
Join us and The Accelerated Cure Project for Multiple Sclerosis by supporting The Barbara Ann Cohen Katz Memorial Fund.
No one should have to live the life our mother did, struggling every day with the debilitating effects of this disease. After one hundred years little is still known about what causes Multiple Sclerosis. Is it a virus? Is it genetic? Is it from environmental sources? No one knows.
While there are limited treatments for certain types of Multiple Sclerosis, not one is a cure; the treatments, if they are successful at all, will only help slow the course of the disease moderately. For the type of Multiple Sclerosis our mother suffered with —Chronic Progressive—even less is known, and there is no effective method of treatment to slow its progression.
Since our mother was so proud and independent, most folks who knew her would hardly know what she dealt with every day for years prior to the ultimate diagnosis and thereafter; and she wouldn’t want us to spell it out either, but we will frame a picture so that you are moved to join with us so that others don’t have to suffer the way she did.
The Disease In Action
First and foremost, MS compromises the immune system. This made her body host to a very rare, lethal incurable form of cancer. Severe acute infections nearly took her life several times.
MS impairs the ability to walk which caused her to fall and break her hip requiring surgical repair and months of physical and occupational rehabilitation.
MS affects the gastro-intestinal system adversely causing constant painful distress and related complications.
MS deteriorates eye sight. Reading, which she loved, was laborious for Mom.
MS weakens you to the point of utter exhaustion doing the smallest task. She felt so tired that she couldn’t get out of bed.
Mostly, it made her dependent upon others which was, for her, a fate worse than death. For those that knew her, you can understand that this was the most difficult of all; hence she retreated from life, except from the matters of her daughters which always kept her challenged and fully engaged.
About Our Mom
Barbara Ann Cohen Katz was above everything else, a mother. That job came first to her. The hardest part of losing her life was having to let go of us. And she wasn’t just a mother to us; she was a mother to many who thought of her as their second mom. How many phone calls she would get on a weekly basis from all of her "children" seeking her wisdom, advice, knowledge, love, support, or just to hear her voice.
Mom had great personal strength, an inner fortitude that carried through all that she did. She approached life with elegance and class and was often compared to Jackie O. Coincidently she grew up across the street from the Kennedy’s in provincial New England. Her intelligence, wit, and acute memory of every last detail set her apart from others. People looked up to her, sought her advice on many of life’s issues and listened with baited breath to stories of her exciting world travels and fascinating people she encountered along the way.
Mom embraced adventure fearing nothing and faced life with a strength and courage that helped her manage daily life with MS. In the end that was what kept her fighting along with the hope of a cure to come in her lifetime. It did not but we want it to come in ours. She was not alone in her fight and hundreds of thousands of people like Mom need our help to strive for a cure in her memory to fight the battle she could no longer wage and ensure that no one ever has to be victim to the debilitating effects of MS.
Little and Big Things You Might Not Have Known About Our Mom (click to open)
CLICK ABOVE TO OPEN AND READ THIS SECTION ABOUT OUR MOM
You can join us by supporting the Barbara Ann Cohen Katz Memorial Fund in any or all of the following ways:
On behalf of our mom and for all those that will be helped in her name, we sincerely thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
Debra Lynne and Nancy Katz-Eder
|
|
|
|
|
