By Tom Grace
Stephanie Rich and Brittany Soule are raising money to help find a cure for pancreatic cancer.
The often-fatal disease claimed Stephanie's father, Walter Rich, who was Brittany's godfather, in August. Rich, 61, was chairman of the board of the New York Susquehanna & Western Railway and the Delaware-Otsego Corp. in Cooperstown.
``After he was diagnosed in February, we were wondering what we could do,'' said Rich, 22. ``We wanted to do something that would involve people in our generation, because not many of them know anything about pancreatic cancer.''
Soule and Rich, who have been friends for years, decided they would design and sell T-shirts for $25 each and donate the money to the Hirshberg Foundation for Pancreatic Research.
So far, they've earned thousands of dollars and plan to present a check for $10,000 to the foundation Oct. 28.
``That's the day they're having a walk-run in L.A.,'' said Soule, 22, ``and we're going to be there.'' Their T-shirt campaign began in March, and Walter Rich was aware of it.
``He wore one of our shirts and he gave us his approval,'' Rich said. ``Brittany did most of the design work, and I've been working on the business end of things.''
Their shirts feature stars on the front and a notation on the back saying pancreatic cancer strikes ``about 32,000 individuals in the United States and about 60,000 in Europe'' each year.
``I knew that Steph liked stars, and we played with a couple of different stencils until we came up with this one,'' said Soule during an interview at Edgewater on Wednesday. This stately brick house near the shore of Otsego Lake had been the home to the Rich family, but it belongs to the railroad and they are moving out.
The shirts, which are made of organic cotton, bear the women's trademark ``Be the difference'' and a purple ribbon, which is associated with pancreatic cancer.
Rich said they have worked with California-based T-shirt design company Bottom Feeder to get the shirts ready for market. They are being sold mostly over the Internet on social networking sites such as Facebook.com and MySpace.com.
``That really is the way to reach people from our generation,'' Rich said. ``We tell our friends and they tell their friends and it goes out from there.''
Shirts may also be ordered by e-mailing Rich at slr407@gmail.com.
