A love letter to Rachel DeMolfetto.
Mondays Cancer Care Foundation · A Vision for 2030
What if a salon could serve every being going through cancer — anywhere in the galaxy?
The salon Rachel built. Plate-glass windows facing Main. The smell of coffee and conditioner. Thirty years of regulars who became family.
Three Decades · One Door
Hairdresser & owner. Thirty years behind the chair. Opened the doors on Mondays.
Rachel's sister. Together they turned private grief into a public welcome.
The third sister. Runs Mondays Cancer Care from Sayville.
"They lost their mother Mildred to breast cancer. And they asked: what would have helped her feel beautiful again?"
In memory of Mildred DeMolfetto
Open the salon on Mondays.
Free of charge.
For anyone in treatment.
Three lines. Twenty-three years. Thousands of clients.
Third Monday of every month. One salon. One sister team.
Every Monday. Demand outpaced one day a month.
Sister salons across Long Island join the model.
Mondays Cancer Care Foundation — 284 W. Main Street.
From a back room in Islip to a Long Island institution.
Partners: NY Cancer & Blood · Northwell · Pfizer Oncology · BMS · Gilead · Macy's
What if Racine scaled?
The first salon-charity to serve every being in the galaxy going through cancer treatment.
Her antennae still hum with low light, but they no longer glow the way they did. Her hair — once silver, once strong — falls in small handfuls each morning. At Racine she gets a wig spun from moonsilk and a long, quiet hour with no questions asked.
On Vega, hands hold memory. Each of her six palms remembers a different child she raised, a different season she survived. The Monday team paints all six in rose gold and listens to all six stories. By the time the polish dries, she is laughing.
She has no hair to cut, no nails to paint. Her body is a soft weather system, and the tumor has pulled her edges into shapes she does not recognize. So the Monday team learns. They breathe with her. They reshape her, slowly, with warm hands and warmer light. She leaves looking like herself again.
The aliens are a metaphor.
Every cancer patient is, in some real way, traveling between worlds.
Racine welcomes them all.
Until then — every Monday, on Earth, at 341 Main Street, Islip, NY.
The doors are already open. The galaxy is welcome to follow.
If you or someone you love is in treatment — Mondays are open. Free. No paperwork. Just call.
Stylists, makeup artists, massage therapists, yoga teachers, hand-holders. The Monday team is always growing.
Every dollar funds another Monday. The Beauty Ball, the Gala, the 5K — every fundraiser keeps the chair open.
"With Mondays at your side,
you are never alone."
For Rachel. For Cynthia. For Karla.
For Mildred.
With love · 341 Main Street · Islip · NY · Earth