Help Wendy Weinstein Beat Breast Cancer

UPDATE MAY 4, 2022

 
WHAT?!  The GoFundMe for Wendy has just reached $13,018 - which means we're past the halfway mark to the $25,000 goal. WOO-FREAKING-HOO!  

Cancer is an anxiety-causing beast, and Wendy needs major Zen to knock it flat. Your donations are slaying her worries around money as she prepares for her double mastectomy (scheduled for May 26) and the long recovery afterward. It takes a gang of warriors to help the general battle cancer, and Wendy's troops are formidable! Thank you to the moon and back for your support. Please continue to share her GoFundMe link, and keep her in your best, shiniest, loviest thoughts. She's got this, because we've got HER, we've all got each other, and that's what this beautiful life is about. Bless you a thousand times!

- Ronnie Polaneczky, organizer


UPDATE APRIL 24, 2022

Oh, my gosh, you beautiful people! The response to this fundraiser has been incredible - and is already helping ease Wendy's financial worries:  She was just able to pay a $2,800 medical bill that her insurance didn't cover.  YES! More bills are coming, and these donations will go a long way to helping her in the fight of her life. Her double mastectomy is now scheduled for May 26th,  after which she'll be unable to work for at least two months. So your donations will be a godsend. Also, she has decided to postpone until October the “Party At Ground Zero #GetMtAiryLit." The fund-raising extravaganza (originally scheduled for July 23) will celebrate the tenth anniversary of her shop's opening.  Its proceeds will be used to light all 209 trees along the Germantown Ave. corridor of Mt. Airy so that it reflects the vibrant spirit of its community.

Please continue to share this GoFundMe page, keep donating what you can, and keep sending prayers and good juju Wendy's way. We can't right cancer for her, but we can cheer her on as she kicks its sorry ass!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!
-Ronnie Polaneczky, organizer

ORIGINAL POSTING:
Hello, friends! As you may have heard, our dear friend and hair stylist extraordinaire Wendy Weinstein – founder of the Ground Zero Salon dynasty - has been diagnosed with breast cancer again. She’s pissed that she found the lump two weeks before what would’ve been her ten-year anniversary of being cancer-fee after her last bout with the disease. Thankfully, it was found early – stage two – and is confined to her right breast only.

 

But she’s had it with “this cancer shit” and will soon undergo a bilateral mastectomy so she never has to deal with it again. The procedure will let her avoid chemotherapy and radiation, which were so debilitating last time. And she’s grateful that her insurance will cover reconstructive surgery, to be performed the same day as the mastectomy.

 

As Wendy has said, and I quote, “The bad news is that I have breast cancer again. The good news is: New boobs!”

Jokes aside, this is going to be a long haul. Wendy will be out of work for six-to-eight weeks, maybe more. She wants to say two things about that.

 

First, she will fight like a badass, the way she did during her first go-round in 2012, during which she lost just ONE day of work (wtf - who does that?).

 

Second, while she won’t be doing hair during her recovery, she plans to be at Ground Zero, diagnosing hair needs and directing clients to stylists who’ll make them happy until she’s once again working her magic in the shop’s front window.

 

What she won’t say – and what she’s only reluctantly allowing me to say here – is that this fight for her life is going to be really expensive.

 

Her health insurance is good, but co-pays and other steep uncovered medical costs will pile up. She also has mortgages on her home and salon, a monthly payment on her truck, regular business costs, plus all the usual bills (food, utilities, wifi) that will need paying while she’s out of work (she has no disability insurance).

 

Hence the reason for this Gofundme. Because if this disease sets Wendy back financially, it will be a cruel irony.

 

Anyone who knows Wendy knows of her huge generosity. For 35 years, she has used her own money, clout, and connections as a small-business owner and super-networked community member to raise funds for people in the midst of hardship and for organizations that do good, like:

 

City of Hope. Need In Deed. The Ronald McDonald Camp. Jefferson’s Breast Center. Penn Vet’s shelter-medicine program. Dancing Classrooms. Alex’s Lemonade Stand. Let Them Eat Cake. Hope Cuts. Hikes For Hope. The 3-Day Walk For Breast Cancer. The AIDS Three-Day Bike Ride. The list goes on.

 

What’s beautiful about Wendy’s philanthropy is how she recruits family, friends, clients, and colleagues to join her in the charitable causes that grab her heart. And she makes it fun.

 

For Jefferson’s Breast Center, she threw a glitzy formal fundraiser - “The Black and White Ball (with a Touch of Pink)” - so everyone could have a blast while doing good. Her next big bash, for PennVet’s shelter-medicine program, was dubbed “The Black and White Ball (with a Touch of Fur)" and featured a pet-adoption corner. For the Ronald McDonald Camp, she annually closed her salon - losing a day’s worth of income - so she and her staff could do hair, makeup, and nails for a “kids day of beauty.”

 

And who can forget the time she lost weight for charity, recruiting supporters to pledge money for every pound she lost (which turned out to be 27) so that she could further support City of Hope (she raked in $15,721)?

 

It was just one effort in the many that have raised close to $2 million for others. Nope, that's not a typo.

 

Wendy goes all in. Always has, always will. And now it’s time for us to do the same for her.

 

Our donations help ease Wendy’s financial worries so she can focus on resting, recovering, and returning to regular life by July 23rd. That’s the date of the next fundraising extravaganza she’s organized. It’s called “Party At Ground Zero #GetMtAiryLit." Its proceeds will fund her mission to light all 209 trees along the Germantown Ave. corridor of Mt. Airy so that the street reflects the vibrant spirit of its community.

 

Typical Wendy.

 

Please give what you can, share this page like crazy, and keep the good thoughts and prayers coming for our girl.

 

Let’s do this.

 

-Ronnie Polaneczky (organizer)