Recently, our mother, Deanna, was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had been at that time already divorced for many years and supporting herself with a thriving business in Water Mill, NY called the Furniture Garden. Unfortunately the cost of treatment, the need to relocate to be with family for the support of getting through treatment left her in a position where she was forced to give up her business, and her home. She has been living with other's now for the last 3 years, first with family, then with a dear lifelong friend, and now she is looking at the future wondering how to find at least some of the freedom she once had--at the minimum, a space, a room to call her own.


We are committed to building a tiny house on her daughter's property in Colorado in the next several months, to give her the space to have some independence and peace in order to continue to heal. For someone who has given so much of herself in this life, to the world, not just for the ones she loves, but equally to strangers, let us help her to have a space to call her own again. In order to get this built for her, we think we need $50,000, and we decided that in honor of her initial commitment to raising that amount back in 1985, we also commit to raising that for her.  


In 1985 Deanna, made a commitment to raise money ($50,000) and awareness for “GRID” or gay-related immune deficiency also known as AIDS. She formed a not-for-profit  organization called STopping AIDS Together or STAT. The first fundraiser was held in July of 1987 in our front yard. Shockingly over 1,000 men, women and children showed up, and the event raised $118,000 to be split evenly between AIDS care and research for adults and children. Over the next 5 years she painfully watched friends, including one very close to her in our home, wither and die from a disease that no one seemed to want to admit was even happening. Most were terrified to come into contact with with anyone infected and suffering, even with a hand shake. Many mistakenly believed that this scourge would never touch their lives.  Some driven by prejudice, would even say, that this horrifying disease was a curse from God. Our mother, on the other hand was in the middle of the fight, Bringing us to Roosevelt Island to visit patients dying alone at holidays. Counseling women at high risk, and teens in schools. We delivered turkeys on thanksgiving and brought boys with a mother dying of AIDS into our home. And most poignantly for us, holding her dear friend close as he died in his husbands arms in our home- he was 28.


That first year led to the next ten years of her and our lives in some way being dedicated to an event called Sunday By the Bay, always on our front lawn, the attendance grew to 2,000 and it became a $3 million dollar fundraiser.


Half of our town was irate, "F--S go home" was spray painted in the center of town, people drove by yelling at the guests. To say my Mom handled that with equanimity and grace would be an understatement. If anything, the turmoil added to her resolve. That event became the largest fundraiser on Long Island, attended by celebrities, photographers, and fashion designers whose numbers were being decimated by this plague.


Sunday by The Bay helped change a national conversation around not only AIDS, but around prejudice , fear and-hatred…


Please help us build this tiny house to give back to a woman that has given so much.