A friend’s memory lives on through Support Connection

Katherine Quinn still thinks about Isabel.

She thinks about her friend, who was diagnosed with breast cancer at just 34, and the wish Isabel had all those years ago: to have someone to talk to who had been through it herself.

Quinn tried to find that person. She looked for a support group.

“There was nothing in Northern Westchester — a support group for women who had been through it, run by women,” Quinn, who lives in Shrub Oak, recalled.

Then, in 1995, Quinn saw an advertisement for a support walk for people affected by breast and ovarian cancer. She decided to participate with her daughter to support Isabel.

The walk was expected to draw about 250 people. About 800 showed up.

The turnout was more than an event could contain. It was also a sign of how much was missing.

Nancy Heller, a breast cancer survivor who helped organize the walk, put out a call for volunteers. Quinn, who had spent years volunteering in her community, offered to help.

Soon, Quinn was sitting down with Heller to talk about the next walk. There was just one problem: There was no organization yet.

“We need more than a walk,” Quinn recalled. “We need an organization.”

With guidance from SHARE, a New York City organization supporting women affected by breast and gynecological cancers, Quinn and other volunteers began building one — a place where people could talk to someone who understood.

That effort became Yorktown Heights-based Support Connection, which opened its doors on Sept. 10, 1996.

Isabel died in 1997, shortly after the organization was founded. But the need she had identified — and that Quinn had struggled to find — became the foundation of the organization’s work.

“I work for Isabel every day. I mean that. It's been many years now that she's gone,” Quinn told Yorktown News. “Doing something in her honor and helping all these people, to me, I think, maybe is a way I also cope with her death.”

Quinn initially thought she would stay for six months to help get the organization off the ground.

Thirty years later, she is still there.

Today, Support Connection offers one-on-one peer counseling from cancer survivors, including Laura Markowski, associate director and peer counselor, as well as support groups, wellness programs, healing arts and other services, all free to people affected by breast and ovarian cancer.

For Markowski, the work is personal. Before joining Support Connection, she had called the organization herself during her own cancer experience. She remembers being frightened and overwhelmed and needing someone to talk to in that moment.

“I was hysterical and I am not a crier,” Markowski said. “I just needed someone like then, not tomorrow. In that moment, that’s when I needed someone.”

Now, she is the person on the other end of that call.

“You could pick up the phone and someone just stepped out of the doctor’s office where they were just diagnosed and you’re the first call,” she said. “That’s a hard call.”

Markowski said being able to talk with someone who understands the experience firsthand can make the process feel less daunting.

“It’s the most rewarding job I could have ever asked for,” she said. “I’ve made so many connections with people, and it’s been seriously life-changing and given me a purpose.”

On Sept. 10, Support Connection celebrated its 30th anniversary at The Briarcliff Manor, exactly 30 years after the organization opened its doors.

For Quinn, the milestone is a reminder of how far the organization has come — and how much the need that brought it together in the first place remains. But the work has never really been about building an organization, she said. It has been about people.

“It’s not about me,” she said. “My joy and my glory comes in the people we have.”

That philosophy is visible in the way Quinn approaches her work. She still goes into the community herself, putting up signs and handing out materials for Support Connection’s annual Support-A-Walk, set for Sunday, Oct. 4, at FDR State Park. Along the way, she talks with business owners, volunteers and strangers.

Sometimes, she said, people recognize her before they know exactly who she is.

To Quinn, those interactions are part of the work.

So is the listening.

People walk through Support Connection’s doors carrying fear, anxiety and uncertainty. Some want to talk. Some want information. Some want to sit in a room with people who understand. Quinn said there is no single formula for how someone should respond to cancer — and no expectation that they respond the same way every day.

“You are being cared for, listened to,” she said. “You’re in a community … Nobody’s going to be judging, nobody’s going to be butting into your business. You might need something one day and not the next.”

That understanding has also been shaped by Quinn’s own life. Isabel died at 41, leaving behind a young daughter. Years later, Quinn cared for her husband through his own cancer diagnosis before his death. Those experiences deepened a lesson she had already carried with her from childhood: Life is going to contain difficult moments. What matters is what you do with them.

For Quinn, that means looking for a bright spot, even on difficult days.

It might be something as simple as a beautiful day. It might be a laugh, a cup of coffee or a memory. It might be watching someone who once felt overwhelmed begin to see that life can still contain joy.

“Joy and grief can coexist,” Quinn said.

That may be the simplest way to understand the work Quinn has spent 30 years building.

Support Connection began with a friend who wanted someone to talk to. Today, it is a community built around making sure no one has to face that fear alone.

And Quinn is still showing up.

Peer counseling is available by phone at 914-962-6402 or 800-532-4290, by email through an online form at supportconnection.org, or in person at its Yorktown Heights office. Call or email ahead for an in-person appointment. Visit the website for information about resources, programs and support.