First Posted: 1/22/2015
Barbara Sciandra may always remember August 2012. Should that memory fade away, however, October 2014 will quickly take its place.
With the help of several individuals in the Greater Pittston area, Sciandra put together one of the largest fundraising events the city has ever seen. The very first “Paint Pittston Pink” weekend was held the first week of October.
Sciandra raised $30,000 for cancer research. In just four days.
For that, the 36-year-old Laflin resident has been named the 2014 Sunday Dispatch Greater Pittston Person of the Year. The Sunday Dispatch Person of the Year represents the person/persons who had the greatest impact on life in Greater Pittston. Nominations are solicited from the community with the final vote being made by the Dispatch editorial staff.
Sciandra was born and raised in the Greater Pittston area. She and her husband, Sal, also a 1996 Pittston Area graduate, have three children: Jameson, 7; Chase, 6; Cameron 2. After spending several years working in Chicago, the couple moved back to the area in 2004, following the passing of Barb’s father, to raise their children.
A breast cancer survivor and 1996 graduate of Pittston Area High School, Sciandra spearheaded the event to help research that saved her life.
“It’s very humbling,” Sciandra said. “Since the time I was diagnosed, I felt the outpouring of community support. To me, this is just the icing on the cake. It really shows how a small community can pull together and pull something like this off.”
An initial goal of $50,000 was set for the first Paint Pittston Pink event. Sciandra was a little skeptical about that number at first but before the event got rolling, donations poured in. At the end, her team raised upwards of $50,000. After expenses, a check for $30,000 was presented to Dr. Brian Czerniecki and the University of Pennsylvania Pennies in Action Fund to help cancer research.
Dealing with cancer
During pregnancy with her youngest child, Cameron, now almost 3 years old, Sciandra discovered a lump on her left breast. From that point, she was persistent and aggressive with ultrasounds, biopsies, mammograms and MRIs.
She was diagnosed with breast cancer on Aug. 17, 2012, stage III in her left breast and stage II in her right. She was 34 years old and had HER2+, an extremely aggressive type of cancer with a high recurrence rate.
She started chemotherapy one day after her eighth wedding anniversary. Doing research, she learned she qualified for a vaccine clinical trial at the University of Pennsylvania.
“I felt like I had done everything I possibly could to prevent a cancer recurrence,” she said. “HER2+ is aggressive and has a high rate of recurrence. I would have been in trouble. It wasn’t even a decision. I was begging them to take me into the trial.”
The trial is run by Dr Czerniecki and is sponsored by the Pennies in Action Fund at UPenn. The day Sciandra presented Czerniecki with a check for $30,000, she had her final vaccine.
“It kind of felt like the end of one road and the beginning of the next road,” she said of the end of her treatment and the beginning of Paint Pittston Pink events. “It’s something different that I know is going to keep happening year after year. And, hopefully, it will be bigger than ever.”
Paint Pittston Pink
The initial goal of Paint Pittston Pink was to inquire about selling breast cancer awareness flags to line Pittston’s Main Street during the month of October, National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The flags did happen but what followed was much bigger than flags.
The process felt real to Sciandra when she saw the flags on Main Street. Then, a banner was strung across the roadway.
“Downtown Pittston is beautiful,” she said. “The signs went up and I began to realize that this weekend in October just goes right along with the theme of the city.”
Things began spiraling out of control, in a good way, for Paint Pittston Pink.
After inquiring about the flag sale, the ColorMePink 5K and Caped CURE-Sader Family Fun Walk turned into the event’s focal point, both of which went off without a hitch. More than 400 runners and walkers took part in the event and Sciandra said there were well over 500 people roaming the streets of Downtown Pittston.
And that was just Saturday.
The Red Mill on Main Street was packed on Oct. 3 for a celebrity bartending night with proceeds assisting Paint Pittston Pink. Serving were Joe Albert, Dr. Shawn Casey, Dr. Nicole Linskey-Ferentino, Ann Fisher, Brian Harashinski, Lori Nocito, Dr. Bruce Saidman and Brandon Whipple.
A silent auction, sponsored by Callahan’s Cafe and Coffee House, Art on Main, Boden, Susquehanna Brewing Company and Bartolai Winery, was held Oct. 5. The event drew 80 people who bid on 60 items.
“They were all so different that each one of them meant a little bit to me,” Sciandra said of all the events. “The race was something really neat because it got families involved. It was really nice to watch the Greater Pittston area students coming together as well.”
For weeks following the event, Main Street was still coated with pink powder from the Color Me Pink 5K and local businesses painted their windows in support of the weekend event. There was so much pink the committee had to organize a cleanup day.
Sciandra recognized several people for making Paint Pittston Pink a success. The core were Main Street Manager Rose Randazzo, Special Events Coordinator Sarah Donahue and Mike Lombardo. But Sciandra said she wouldn’t have been able to do anything without her friend, Qiana Lehman, of Dupont.
“I wouldn’t have been able to do the weekend without her,” she said. “We were a checks and balance system for each other. I’m so grateful to them all.”
The future
A non-profit organization, Paint Pittston Pink is currently in the process of becoming a registered 501(c)3 to make it easier for people to make donations.
Expect to see the organization represented in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade and other events throughout Greater Pittston in the coming months. Plans for the second Paint Pittston Pink weekend are already in the works with this year’s events scheduled for Oct. 2, 3 and 4.
“People have been congratulating me from the beginning,” Sciandra said. “It wasn’t about me. Cancer affects everyone. The reason it generated so much support is that people want to find a cure for the disease.”
For more information about Paint Pittston Pink, visit www.pinkpittston.com.
