For the second year in a row, Stone House Properties is proud to support local women during Breast Cancer Awareness Month. For every sale we close in October, we’ll donate to the Denise Kaley Fund for Berkshire County Women with Cancer.
Denise Kaley was a local massage therapist who died of lung cancer at age 46 in 2010. Kaley spent her last month of life working with her close friend Barbara Bonner to establish a fund to help women with cancer who came after her. The fund, managed by the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, provides women in serious financial need with help for day-to-day expenses while they undergo treatment.
Previous recipients of the grant include a 56-year-old woman with pancreatic cancer, who received fuel assistance while shouldering her responsibility as the sole provider of her family. A 32-year-old woman with breast cancer, who was unable to work during her treatment process, received assistance for a daycare provider for her 2-year-old and infant children. In the 15 years since its inception, the Denise Kaley Fund now makes grants to women on a near-weekly basis.
Barbara Bonner continues to serve on the fund’s committee alongside Ellen Casey Boyd and Beth Rose. The fund’s Community Referral Network works with patients to submit an application on their behalf–from there, the committee makes decisions and dispenses the grant quickly, often within the very same week.
Kaley's legacy has also grown beyond financial aid. The Denise Kaley Health Coaching Through Cancer initiative at the Phelps Cancer Center in Pittsfield offers holistic support—nutrition, lifestyle changes, stress reduction, and community-building—for women from diagnosis through recovery. Health Coach Amanda Bayliss leads this empowering program.
Stone House Properties is an independently owned and operated real estate brokerage. We're dedicated to the communities we have always called home. For over 40 years, our agents have donated their time and dollars back to the people of Berkshire and Columbia County through youth sports, affordable housing initiatives, arts institutions, historical societies, local food banks and much more.
If you would like to join Stone House Properties in contributing to this extraordinary fund, click here. If you or someone you know could benefit from the Denise Kaley Fund, head to the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation website.
