Breast cancer survivors find creative outlet and community at creative arts support group at Adelphi

Katie Kaspar, a breast cancer survivor, was "cautiously optimistic" when she went to a creative arts support group at Adelphi University almost a decade ago, wanting to meet more people who shared her experience with the illness.

What she found was "an amazing group of people, like I could just talk forever about them. It’s really more than just a program; it really is a community. They’re caregivers who just provide strength," Kaspar said.

The free program, offered by the Adelphi New York Statewide Breast Cancer Hotline and Support Program, is called "Seas The Day," and creates a relaxing break from health concerns for survivors and patients, inviting them to produce their own masterpieces.

One morning this week in the classroom, the large windows welcoming the morning sunlight and trees, at each of the six tables were pictures of a butterfly color page. Across from them were brightly colored scissors, pens, boxes of crayons, and an envelope of bleeding tissue paper as options for the participants to decorate.

"They provide different outlets and a way to express yourself artistically," said Kaspar of the weekly sessions. They often begin with meditation "to kind of center everybody" before participants talk about what they want to create that day, and sometimes get counseling about handling their illness.

Kaspar discovered the program through an advertisement for a jewelry making class it was offering. She was not expecting to bond with the participants or become involved in the program. But Kaspar would go on to help run events in Breast Cancer Awareness month or Pink October in partnership with Adelphi at New Hyde Memorial High School where she teaches. In 2020, she became a part of their annual Celebration of Survivorship where she was asked to speak about her experience as a breast cancer survivor.

In 2016, Kaspar received her stage one breast cancer diagnosis after a routine mammogram. A second mammogram confirmed the finding and she began treatment. "I was told that it would’ve been more advanced if I hadn't done that [second] mammogram," Kaspar recalled.

Breast cancer is the second most common cancer in women after skin cancer, according to the National Cancer Institute. It is also more common on Long Island than in the state and nationally, according to the New York State Cancer Registry. 

During the pandemic, Kimberly Newman, marketing and communications coordinator of the program, who studied art therapy, pitched an idea to Angela Papalia, assistant director of the program and a social worker, to hold Zoom art classes where immunocompromised breast cancer patients would be able participate from home.

The program is funded by a grant from the Marilyn Lichtman Foundation in Wantagh, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,  the Manhasset Junior Coalition and the Northwell Health Cancer Institute.

"We would do each week an hour and a half program which would combine some creative art projects as well as being able to talk about their work and the counseling portion of it," Newman recalled.

A lot of the participants would become close and return very often. The program was able to reach people outside of New York State, leading to its unexpected success. In 2023, the program transitioned the Zoom art classes into in-person forums opened to about 50 participants. Last week was their third in-person forum.

Kaspar said the session was "so brilliant" and "so inviting for people to come and just be artistic and express yourself in any way you felt necessary for the day. "

For more information visit their website at breastcancerhotline@adelphi.edu or call (516) 877-4320.