Team of the Week

Team Esther Trencher

Starting a team to remember the mother of a best friend from childhood

Team Esther Trencher participated in its first Komen Greater NYC Race for the Cure^® this year. The team was founded by Micole Horowitz in memory of Esther Trencher, who died last summer after battling Stage 4 breast cancer for 12 years. Horowitz and Trencher’s daughter have been best friends since early childhood. The team captain was very close to her friend’s mother; the Trencher house was like her second home.

Team captain Micole Horowitz with
two of Esther Trencher's children
and a team member/helper.

“Esther Trencher was an amazing mother, a devoted wife, sister and daughter…a huge part of our community,” explained Horowitz. “She was always running charity events, prayer services, learning groups, breast cancer fundraisers…always trying to help her fellow human beings in an way possible.

“Her death was a huge hit to us all, and we thought that making a team in her memory would be an appropriate way to remember her,” she continued. “We’d be raising money and walking as a community — as a family fighting breast cancer, just like she did her whole life.”

The team had 82 members — Esther Trencher’s family (daughter, sons, daughter-in-law, sisters and brothers, nieces and nephews), friends and community members who all shared memories of and experiences with this special woman. In addition, 20 high school students and faculty members from the Ramaz Upper School came to support the team. The group was also joined by people who had registered for the Race but had forgotten to sign up for the team.

Breast cancer has affected every team member, because they were all touched by Esther Trencher’s life and death. Its membership included a breast cancer survivor.

Horowitz used Facebook messaging, personal emails, synagogue postings, high school/college emails and word of mouth to let people know about the team and recruit members. She also used Facebook —— posting status information on the team page and team members’ personal pages. Team Esther Trencher set a fundraising goal of $4,800, but, as of the end of September, had raised over three times as much — $14,670.

The best part of Race Day? “Dancing together to all the music with our arms around each other at the start of the Race waving flags that said In Memory of Esther Trencher,” said Horowitz.

She also cited “…holding hands with Esther’s family members, feeling a sense of joy for what we had accomplished in her name and sadness that she was not there with us.”