Pink Angels Among Us

Welcome back survivors and survivor fans! As we mentioned in our last post things have been busy here as our founder Reggy Stainfil finished the final touches on our 2017 calendar and we closed out October with our Pink Carpet Gala - our second annual calendar launch party! Whether you were with us in person or in spirit we are grateful :)

Our EOTS family got together for the epic event at The Wilshire Grand Hotel in West Orange on Thursday, October 27th to roll out the new calendar, honor our new survivors, and celebrate past survivors, friends and family. Whatever brought you to our event, we all shared the same goals - celebrating survival and spreading awareness!

Reggy greeted each member of our new 2017 troupe at the door with pink and white sashes, and passing the torch in a sense, most of our 2016 survivors were on hand to present them with gifts. We learned a little bit about our new survivors when guest speaker Tuana Grundy inspired us with some of their personal stories and then we were all touched again when Treasure Borde treated them to a stirring performance of Mariah Carey’s Hero.

If you did make it to the event then you know what we’re talking about! And you may have also met Angelina Killane-Sims or noticed her smile beaming from somewhere in the room. Angelina is the Founder and CEO of AAngelsNJ, a cancer awareness organization based out of New Jersey, which we have teamed with for our new calendar with half our proceeds going directly to them!

This new and wonderful union came about through a chance happening really. For last year’s event, Reggy had browsed Facebook seeking a speaker on breast cancer and stumbled upon Angelina’s page. Once the two met it was clear that Angelina had more to bring to the table than just one speech. Instantly, she wanted to get more involved in our EOTS project and we were thrilled to have her on board. The rest as they say is history - or in this case HERstory!

Angelina is a breast cancer survivor having been diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer in November 2007. Knowing the struggles firsthand, Angelina takes both her organization and breast cancer very seriously, sticking to the motto: “AAngelsNJ will always be by your side” – and they will! AAngelsNJ serves as an extended family, support network, and resourceful tool for many local breast cancer patients, survivors, and their families with a focal point mission of serving the undeserved and underinsured.

To learn more about our new BFFs and pink partners over at AAngelsNJ, check out their website at www.aangelsnj.org and Facebook at facebook.com/aangelsnj.

Also, if you haven’t grabbed a calendar yet, click here to get one (or two!) now. We’re selling 2017 calendars for $20 each and you can still order our inaugural 2016 spread for half-price.

Another important moment of the night was a surprise cake for our EOTS visionary Reggy. Reggy is so dedicated and focused to this project he nearly missed his own birthday on October 25th knee-deep in EOTS event preparation! So as all our readers know we are BIG on BIRTHDAYS here, so happy belated Reggy -- thank you for starting this project and giving us (and it) your all!!

As a parting gift all Gala attendees received favors including pink fortune cookies and EOTS 2017 wristbands. For more photos and videos from the night, check out our Instagram @eyeofthesurvivor or Facebook page at facebook.com/eyeofthesurvivor.

What a night! And what a year! Our take away (so far) for 2016 -- and following such an inspiring event -- is that there are undoubtedly pink angels among us, through Angelina’s organization, through our EOTS family, and all our readers, survivors, supporters, friends and family -- thank you all!

As you can tell, we are super pumped for the New Year BUT we’re not saying good bye to 2016 just yet – we’re still excited to celebrate and meet our remaining survivors for THIS year, so be sure to stick with us for that and join us next time to meet our November survivor. See you there!!