Starting Monday, October 24th, if you wake up to find a bunch of pink flamingos on your front lawn, it means you’ve been ‘flocked” by the girls of GLO. And it means you have an opportunity to donate to a great cause - breast cancer research. Every October, which is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the members of the Walt Whitman High School Girls’ Leaders Organization (GLO) look forward to this unique way of raising money for breast cancer research at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
All the money raised by “flocking” is donated to Stand Up for Suzanne, a local charity inspired by the life and strength of Huntington mom and friend Suzanne Sokolowski-Shea, who was diagnosed with Stage 4 metastatic breast cancer in 2007. Before she passed away in 2013, Suzanne asked her friends to continue the work of giving back to the breast cancer research community.
For seven nights, several teams of two girls fan out around South Huntington with flocks of flamingos. “Each team gets a flock of around six to ten flamingos, and we go around and secretly leave our flock on somebody’s front lawn,” said GLO advisor Kim Mahoney. “And there’s a sign that’s put on the lawn that says ‘Congratulations, you’ve been flocked!’” That sign directs you to the Stand Up for Suzanne website which tells you what to do next. You can make a donation if you’d like, because there’s no obligation if you’re flocked, but then you can anonymously pick someone to get flocked next! Later that night, the girls go back out and migrate all the flocks to those nominated lawns. “You never know whose house you’re going to from one night to the next, so it’s a lot of fun,” added Mahoney. “On the last night the last flock gets picked up and goes back to wait for next year.”
Walt Whitman GLO is an academic sports honors society, for junior and senior girls with an academic average of 88 or higher. They must be involved in a varsity sport for two years or participate in Girls’ Sports Night for the two years prior to their induction. Members perform a lot of community service, and GLO’s “flocking” partnership with Stand Up for Suzanne has contributed to the charity raising just over $85,000 since 2015 for Cold Spring Harbor Lab breast cancer research.
As you might imagine, the activity that leads up to a flock of flamingos suddenly appearing on a front lawn overnight has led to some funny stories. “Some people think they’re being robbed,” said GLO advisor Mahoney. “Most people aren’t sure what’s going on. We had one old lady who loved the flock so much she brought it into her house and put it in her front window!” They let her keep the flamingos.
For more information about the “flocking” fundraiser, click here.
Suzanne Sokolowski-Shea
For more information about Stand Up for Suzanne you can go to the charity’s website.