Embrace Your Sisters group lives up to its name

PUBLICATIONS:

Democrat & Chronicle 10/17/13

"In 2006 a local woman [Chrisann Philipson] was fighting breast cancer and her sister and three of her friends did a fundraiser," said Susan Cooney, president of the board of directors of Embrace Your Sisters (EYS). "They raised so much money that they decided to start a charity."Embrace Your Sisters, a Canandaigua-based not-for-profit that provides short-term emergency financial grants to local women battling breast cancer, has lived up to its name from the start.

Philipson, Lisa DiStefano-Cessna, Alisha Cessna, Judith Raffard, and Daisie Nichols-Stanley, all of the Canandaigua area, founded EYS.

Cooney, an attorney, got involved because she was asked if she could donate some time to help set up the charity and she agreed to a one-year commitment.

However, once she saw the good that EYS does for women in Livingston, Monroe, Ontario, Seneca, Steuben, Wayne & Yates counties, she could not leave.

Emergency grants from EYS help women in breast cancer treatment pay for things such as rent, utilities and prescription co-pays.