Mourning the loss of a community champion
Karen Stanley
Karen Stanley loses battle with cancer
South Boston lost a dear friend.
After a courageous fight, Karen Stanley, 62, lost her battle against pancreatic cancer. And we are devastated.
The news hasn’t really sunk in yet. In fact, she beat cancer once before many years ago, so we thought this was just another fight for her to win. And fight she did.
Shortly before she passed, she said, “You can knock me down, but you can’t knock me out. Until they tell me differently, I’m still here.”
Karen, a lifelong South Boston girl (she never called it Southie), was a friend, a colleague, a true community legend … She was related to probably half of the neighborhood and was friends or acquaintances with the rest.
Because of Karen, South Boston has become the thriving neighborhood it is today.
She helped grow and manage the South Boston Chamber of Commerce, first as a store owner herself, then as an event planner with her Vibrant Event Productions.
She was a founder and the driving force behind the South Boston Street Fest. What started as a glorified sidewalk sale has grown to a community event featuring 100 vendors and restaurants and 5,000 visitors annually. This year’s Street Fest, which will happen Saturday, Sept. 21 on East Broadway, marks year No. 24 and we couldn’t have gotten here without Karen. “It will always be my baby,” she said.
Even as she grew weaker over the summer, she worked on the Street Fest until the end. She joked that she made her partner, Don Wilson, pick up the slack. Even as recently as last week, Karen was thinking about what outfit she would be wearing to the Street Fest.
In addition to the Street Fest, Karen also planned and organized the Spring and Christmas Strolls, Trick or Treat on Broadway, and numerous South Boston Chamber of Commerce networking events.
All her efforts brought the community together. Most people may not realize all the work she did behind the scenes to make these events happen. But because of Karen’s amazing work ethic, her stellar organizational skills, and her expansive knowledge of our community, we were able to put smiles on faces, candy in trick-or-treat bags, products in shopping bags, and Santa in front of thousands of children.
But more than that, Karen was a friend, a confidante, a mentor, and a guiding light. She was kind (but stern when it came to organizing her events – right, shop owners?), caring, funny, and loving.
Donna Brown, Executive Director of South Boston NDC, knew Karen for almost 25 years. “As we worked together on the South Boston Street Fest and the Taste of South Boston, we became good friends as well as colleagues,” Donna said. “Karen was incredibly talented at envisioning and executing an event. She was also kind and compassionate, with a sense of humor that brought joy to the work.”
Donna and Karen shared a love of fashion, especially anything leopard print, “but I was certainly not able to wear the high heels she could manage! And no one around here could wear a cowboy hat like Karen,” said Donna.
Ginger DeShaney, Development & Communications Director for South Boston NDC, only had the privilege of knowing Karen for about three years but they bonded almost immediately. “It wasn’t long before we were telling each other ‘love ya, girl’ and sharing hugs every time we saw each other,” Ginger said. “We shared late-night emails about work and life. Our organizing sessions for South Boston NDC events were a mixture of laughter, gossip, planning, and creativity.”
In true Irish Catholic tradition, Karen didn’t want many people to know about her struggles. But because of that, she never got to hear what she meant to the neighborhood; how she changed our lives; the impact she made. Hopefully she knew.
We hope she also knew that we are all better people for having known her and for having loved her.
Rest in peace, friend. We love you.
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We will have a Memory Book at the Street Fest tomorrow for everyone to share stories and memories. We will give the book to Karen’s family.