Panhel donates money to cancer center

Contributing to a women's cause at Penn, the Panhellenic Council presented the Penn Cancer Center with a check for $1,150 Monday, which will go toward the Rena Rowan Breast Health Center, slated to open in the fall. Panhel raised the money for the Breast Health Center -- Panhel's official philanthropic effort -- through an event called Panhel at the Palestra. Sorority sisters sold tickets to the March 3 Penn basketball game and donated $2 from every ticket to the center. Panhel also held a tug of war between the sororities during halftime. At the check presentation, Panhel President Jennifer Chanowitz, a Sigma Delta Tau sister, talked about why Panhel chose to become involved with the Breast Health Center. "As the largest women's organization on Penn's campus, we wanted to choose a cause for which women could not only donate money but also their time," Chanowitz, a College junior, said. Cancer Center Executive Director Beverly Ginsburg praised Panhel's choice of a charitable cause, stressing the need for student involvement with the Cancer Center. "The more the center integrates with the University community, the more it can serve that community," she said. Ginsburg also talked about the impact that breast cancer has on the sufferer's family. "[The woman is] the one who carries the weight, the burden of the family," she said. "So she's facing breast cancer, but she still has to tend to her children and her husband and her aging mother." The new center -- which will be located on the 14th floor of the Penn Tower Hotel -- will provide oncologists, a cancer rehabilitation team, a plastic surgeon, a nutritionist and psychological counselors. There will also be a boutique selling wigs, scarves, prostheses and medical books and journals. The Breast Health Center is named for Rena Rowan, one of the owners of the fashion designing company Jones New York. Rowan is a breast cancer survivor who was treated at Penn's Cancer Center. According to Ginsburg, the money donated by Panhel will go toward the purchase of CD players and CDs to be placed next to each chemotherapy chair in the Breast Health Center. Panhel plans to continue its fundraising efforts with the Dance for a Cure dance-a-thon on April 8, which will be cosponsored by the InterFraternity Council and the Bicultural InterGreek Council. And in the fall, Panhel will hold its second annual Pumpkin Chase 5k run, donating all proceeds to the center.

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