Windsor Hill goes pink to raise breast cancer awareness

“Team Donna,” people like Sue Parillo will attest, keeps getting bigger and bigger with each school year in Johnston.

So much so that Winsor Hill School was transformed into a sea of pink that came in all sizes, shapes, forms and people of all ages last Friday during what may have been the largest Pink Out Day since the Johnston elementary facility started honoring breast cancer survivors.

“We honor those who are going through the battle and those we are survivors,” said Parillo, who is Health and Physical Education teacher. “Winsor Hill [School] has had seven people working here that have been survivors.”

That’s why Parillo has health lessons centered on awareness, hope and support and gets the students involved to make all kinds of signs, slogans and posters that were placed throughout Winsor Hill School.

“As the health and PE teacher I promote being involved in giving back to the community,” Parillo explained. “Breast Cancer Awareness is our first initiative each year. We discuss the powerful vocabulary words associated with it – hope, believe, respect, love, support, survivor. Our school year theme is Be Your Own Superhero.”

Parillo, who also serves as head coach of Johnston High’s champion cheerleaders, said, “The students can learn about empathy and kindness through events like this Pink Out Day. They also learned about a major nationwide event that here in Rhode Island is the Gloria Gemma Breast Cancer Foundation’s Flames of Hope that has honored our own Winsor Hill Superhero.”

Enter Donna Pingitore, the secretary at Winsor Hill School, who is a Breast Cancer survivor and who recently enjoyed the honor of being a torch bearer for the Gloria Gemma Foundation Flames of Hope and was in the middle of last Friday’s Pink Out Day-Dress Down Day celebration.

“Her personal journey is amazing,” Parillo and Principal Michele Zarcaro concurred while organizing students who were decked out in special pink garb for a Pink Out Day photo. “We’re going to have a collection in her name for the Gloria Gemma Foundation.”

Back in 2010, when Pingitore was diagnosed with Stage II Breast Cancer at age 48, she was a 10-year veteran of the Johnston School Department, a daughter, mother and avid beachgoer.

“Even though I had held my mother’s hand through her own breast cancer disagnosis eight years earlier, my diagnosis hit me like a break wall. It took my breath away ... literally,” Pingitore recalled. “My daughter was two weeks away from starting her second year of law school. I had begun my back-to-school shopping and was looking forward to a new school year at Winsor Hill.”

Much to her chagrin – as well as her fellow Winsor Hill “family members,” Pingitore was out of school that year dealing with the rigors of Breast Cancer.

“That year was a blur,” she said. “I was undergoing treatments but I was able to get through it because of my support system. I had amazing doctors who were able to pout this Humpty Dumpty back together again. My parents, my daughter – my biggest supporter and best nurse, my Winsor Hill family and the incredible women at the Gloria Gemma Breast Cancer Foundation kept my spits high through one of the most difficult experiences of my life.”

It was back in 2010 that her daughter started “Team Donna” and rallied 30 of their closest friends and family to run a 5K road race in her honor.

Even though Pingitore was only four days out of her first surgery, she somehow found the inner strength to meet those people at the finish line.

“Seven years later our team has grown and each year I am honored to carry a torch in the Gloria Gemma Illuminations of Hope ceremony,” Pingitore said while receiving congratulations on her breast cancer artwork that’s prominently displayed in the school office. “Every year since Winsor Hill holds this Pink Out Day to raise money and awareness for the Foundation.”

Last Friday’s total, on a day that Pingitore called “absolutely amazing with an array of pink throughout this building and the spirit of students, parents, faculty and our PTO, we raised $685 for an amazing organization.”