Moving Our Agenda, Staying in Brooklyn

by Christian John Lillis

Actions speak louder than words. It’s a phrase dear to many New Yorkers, including my late mom. This year, the 4th annual gala honoring her and fighting the disease that took her life has grown into a national event.

It’s not in any other city or in Manhattan. It’s right here in Brooklyn.

A native of our borough, Peggy Lillis worked to put herself through Brooklyn College. She taught kindergarten in Flatbush and worked weekends as a server at the Breezy Point Diner. One of the proudest days of her life was buying her home in Marine Park. Just one year later, in 2010, she died from a deadly infection of clostridium difficile, or C. diff.

The disease kills 30,000 Americans each year, more than HIV and drunk driving combined. It’s a bacterial infection that hits people of all ages, many after routine hospital or medical visits and taking antibiotics that disable disease-fighting bacteria in our digestive system. If not identified quickly, it can shut down the intestines and prove deadly, as in my mom’s case, within days.

The bad news is the toll of the disease continues to grow in our country, hitting as many as 3,000,000 Americans each year. The good news: It’s largely preventable based on hand-washing, cleaning procedures, and more strategic use of antibiotics.

I live in Park Slope, and that’s where in 2010 my brother Liam and I launched the organization to bear witness to a woman who brought out the best in all who knew her and to stop the disease that took her in her prime. The Peggy Lillis Memorial Foundation has grown steadily.

Last year, more than 150 people attended our gala at the Dyker Beach Club less than 48 hours after Super-Storm Sandy hit the community. This year, we determined to honor that spirit of fierce loyalty by returning to the same venue. We will pay tribute to some of the individual determination and generosity at the root of our collective resilience.

We also will recognize a remarkable leader whom my mother admired.

Congresswoman Louise Slaughter has led the way for more than 25 years in the U.S. House of Representatives, for women, for New York’s working families and small business, and for public health. She’s the only microbiologist in Congress. And she is a disease-fighting agent of the greatest strength who has applied her training and skills effectively in public service.

Our humble organization has a huge mission, to work through public policy and health systems to prevent and stop a way-too-common infection. We continue to make progress in achieving it in part because of the values that drive us. Education. Informed advocacy. Teamwork. These are lessons we learned here in Brooklyn. From here we are engaging, and changing, the world.

Christian John Lillis lives in Park Slope and is executive director of the Peggy Lillis Memorial Foundation. Find out more at www.peggyfoundation.org .