JANUARY 25, 2016

PARAGON INTERIOR DESIGNS

Joan Pingitore has been an artist since she was very young and it has always been an integral part of her life. She grew up in a very creative family and was often exploring new art forms. Her mother, an artist and interior designer, encouraged her to embrace new challenges.

Joan has a degree in art/design and has maximized it in many ways. She helped run her family business of 10 gift stores in the Buffalo area and performed the design/display work. She’s owned several artistic businesses over the years- such as custom wood-working, jewelry design and landscape design, along with teaching art in local schools, colleges and other organizations. Joan is also a painter and sells her art through many venues.

Ms. Pingitore has helped many others with design in their homes and due to frequent requests, she opened her interior design and event decorating service entitled Paragon Interior Designs, which is now going into its third year. With her art knowledge, formal training and 30 years of design experience, she’s proficient at designing residential, business and restaurant interiors.

Joan’s designs have a unique “one of a kind” flair. She states that- “I have this ability to walk into a blank space and fill it with color, furnishings and a design that is very beautiful yet practical.” She will consult with a client and lay out all the specifics that need to be done an can also provide services to assist with this transformation.

Ms. Pingitore enjoys helping clients with simple color changes and furniture rearrangements for their homes. She can walk into your space and re-design it to be more efficient and attractive. If your house needs some refreshing or you are just tired of the same old thing, she’s the one to call. “I’ve also had clients contact me to have their house up-dated for a

party or large gathering where visitors will be in the home”, she expresses. “I can transform the home in several days with just minor changes and rearranging”. She can also help you prepare your home to sell and does home staging. She knows the best changes to make so it’s more appealing to potential buyers and which can be minimal work for the homeowner.

People can be apprehensive when they hear the term “interior designer” and think it will cost them

a fortune, but Joan charges a very modest fee for consultations and will also work by the hour to assist where she can. “In an hour or two people can have a room or their whole home completely redesigned”. She can even give you ideas as simple as how to renew your bathroom or any individual room with just color and rearrangements. She enjoys design consul-tations for businesses and has remade many offices with efficient space, color and unique embellishments. “Color makes a huge difference in the entire feeling of a room”, she mentions. “Clients or patients can feel more comfortable without even knowing why- with the right colors surrounding them”. She has also de-signed restaurant interiors and is looking forward to doing more. “I’m very aware of space in a restaurant”, Joan claims. “I can immediately see where there are traffic-flow trouble and noise problems and have solu-tions. I can also change the ambiance from one of dull and restrained to one of comfort and liveliness.

Ms. Pingitore is excited about her new business and is looking forward to many new adventures. “ I thrive on creative endeavors, new challenges and problem solving,” she says.

As an artist, Joan will also design logos for any busi-ness or organization. She also gives discounts to non-profit organizations which need a little sprucing-up.

As a special spring promotion, Joan is offer-ing design specials- filled with ideas and useful information...”Bringing your life to space”!

Paragon Interior Designs is a member of the Greater Olean Chamber of Commerce, so you can use their gift certificates toward any services If you think you have a need for these services, feel free to contact Joan by email at paragondesings1@yahoo.com or at 716-372-2784 or on her Face-book page at Paragon Interior Designs.

Before & Beautifully Ever After

JoanPingitore

Evelyn Sabina moved to the Olean area and told her husband, “Let’s give this place two years.”

She was in shock, having centered much of her life and experience around Toronto. There just wasn’t much here. Where was the excitement? Where was the culture?

That was about 25 years ago. She’s long since viewed her transplanted home — and career with the goal of keeping it economically viable — in a different light.

Sabina is project manager for the local Dream It. Do It. chapter (DIDI-WNY), which is tasked with com-pelling area school students toward pursuits in sci-ence, technology, engineering and math (S.T.E.M.), and often-fruitful career paths in the local industrial sector. She’s the second woman — Kathleen Martel was the other — to hold the title since DIDI-WNY opened an Olean-area office in 2010.

“It feels wonderful to be a part of it, but I don’t really think of being a woman in this role,” Sabina said. “Yes, I’m wanting to get more girls interested in manufacturing, but I’m also wanting to get the boys interested. It is a brain drain on both sides. The part that I’m really interested in is getting the word out to different schools, to the students, to different organi-zations of the opportunities that are here.”

But getting girls involved and showing them the potential employment realities has become a favored goal.

It’s working, Sabina said.At the last Dream It. Do It. 500 in November — a

nationally touted event in which high-schoolers from numerous area districts craft and race rubber band-powered cars at St. Bonaventure University — roughly 30 percent of the participants were girls. That number has increased each of its four years, Sabina said.

“This year there were quite a few girls who had their own teams,” Sabina recalled. “What I really liked seeing was the mixture on the teams. A number of the schools had either two boys and two girls or three girls and one boy or all girls. It wasn’t just a separation, which is something they also need to learn. It’s not a

separation in the workplace. It’s working together.”Growing up in Grimsby, Ontario, Sabina’s father

was a vice president and engineer at a steel company in Hamilton. She dreamed of someday becoming an engineer.

“But my dad would not hear of it,” said Sabina, now 58, who has enjoyed a lifelong career in education, having taught numerous subjects at multiple levels.

With Dream It. Do It., she’s telling girls: “You can.”For proof, Sabina looks at the likes of Mary

Deegan-Collins of SolEpoxy, Melanie Wemmel of Dresser-Rand and Crystal Wiech of Scott Rotary Seals, among others who have found success at local indus-tries.

Since its inception, Dream It. Do It. has organized for student manufacturing facility tours and conversa-

tions with local professionals on how careers go from A to B.

For some kids, admittedly, they don’t spark an inter-est, Sabina said. For others, though, they ignite curiosi-ties and sometimes open doors to career paths.

Newly implemented Dream Teams — teams of young professional men and women from area indus-tries — are now visiting school districts to mentor the youngsters with DIDI-WNY. Many have visit their local alma maters. Several, Sabina said, have noted they would’ve benefited in their youth from young-adult role models who once walked the same school halls.

“Two of the people from the Dream Team said they had no idea what they could do in chemistry back in high school,” she said. “I think this will be a valuable resource (for the students). They can relate to the Dream Teams. Then we can keep expanding it out to other subjects.”

Industries have sought to dispel long-held miscon-ceptions regarding their practices as “dark and dirty,” Sabina added.

“It’s much more high-tech and cutting-edge and interesting than it was perceived for so long,” Sabina said.

Even the arts have their place. What is the architec-ture of a skyscraper or the computer-aided drafting of a home, Sabina asked, other than art? Five years of her career were spent as curator of education at St. Bonaventure University’s Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts.

“Creativity is so important. People who have strengths in the arts ... you find they may not realize there may be opportunities in manufacturing where they can use these strengths,” Sabina said. “It’s not a hidden fact. People that are strong in music are often very strong in math. There’s a lot of research done on that. Also, people that have artistic talents also have great problem-solving skills.”

Sabina once taught as an adjunct instructor in St. Bonaventure’s School of Education, along with stints at Jamestown Community College and Buffalo State.

She lives in Allegany with her husband of 30 years, Dr. Les Sabina, chairman of SBU’s Visual and Perform-ing Arts Department. They have two grown children, Heather and Robb.

Sabina compelling girls and boys to industry careers

Photo submittedEvelyn Sabina is project manager for the local Dream It. Do It. chapter (DIDI-WNY), which is tasked with compelling area school students toward pursuits in science, technology, engi-neering and math. She’s the second woman — Kathleen Martel was the other — to hold the title since DIDI-WNY opened an Olean-area office in 2010.

By Kelsey BoudinSpecial to Twin Tiers Woman

Every year, there are more than 21,000 new cases of ovarian cancer in the United States alone, and approximately two-thirds of the cases result in death.

“This is a story women need to hear,” said Susan Evans, a re-tired English teacher who taught for 32 years at Bradford Area High School, serves as a member of the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford’s Advisory Board and is a survivor of ovarian cancer.

Now in remission, Evans was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2012 after noticing an ongoing swelling in her ankle that was, for a long time, dismissed by doc-tors.

“I had a swollen ankle for over six months, and no one seemed to know why,” Evans said. “Finally, my chiropractor actually was the one who suggested that I should have it looked at more thorough-ly, and that’s when it was deter-mined to be a tumor caused by ovarian cancer.”

Only 1 in 5 of ovarian cancer cases are found early, like Evans’, giving it the nickname “the silent killer.”

“Because the symptoms are so vague, it very easily goes undetected,” Evans said. “Most women who have it find out by chance, and that’s part of the problem because there’s no test for ovarian cancer. Most who

find out do so a little too late.”Women are often passive with

their health, dismissing symp-toms because they are too busy or think little of the subtle irregu-larities, to which Evans insisted the importance of personal proactivity.

“From the time I was diag-nosed at Bradford, I was con-stantly told where I needed to go and what I needed to do,” Evans said. “And I listened, but at the end of the day, I took in what the professionals told me and I made decisions for myself that needed to be made. It’s important to have a working relationship with your doctors that allows you to rely on their expertise without compromising your voice, and it’s up to every person — every woman — to know her own body and educate herself on the pos-sibilities.”

At Magee Women’s Hospital in Pittsburgh, Evans was under the care of Dr. Thomas Krivak. Dur-ing her treatment, she decided to do two things — write a book about her experience and set up a fund for the proceeds. Only at such an urban hospital as Magee was she able to get the treat-ment and postoperative care she needed, and Krivak collaborated with Evans on a resulting book called “Don’t Write the Obituary Yet.”

“He’s one of Pittsburgh’s most notable medical professionals, and I was very fortunate to have met him and been able to have his input and expertise in this book that I think is so important for women to familiarize them-selves with,” according to Evans. “And not only that, but after the book was published, Dr. Krivak told me, ‘This is how doctors learn, too.’”

Unless patients divulge their health concerns with medical professionals, many symptoms go unnoticed and undiagnosed. Combined with the fact that there is no definitive test for it, ovarian cancer is a daunting diag-nosis once it is determined.

As a result, upon publication of the book that Evans co-authored with Krivak, she and her husband, Dr. George P. Evans of Bradford, established the Evans-Krivak Gynecological Cancer Research and Education Fund under the auspices of The Pittsburgh Foun-dation to heighten research of gynecological cancers, particu-larly ovarian cancer, and to en-courage physicians to specialize in gynecology and oncology.

“Ovarian cancer is the least funded cancer in the United States,” Evans said, citing her inspiration and commitment to establishing the fund.

“The fund is designed to ad-vance knowledge of this disease and to share that knowledge with medical professionals every-where — certainly practitioners in rural areas such as Bradford that simply don’t have as much access to research facilities as urban areas do.”

She emphasized that the work of Krivak and his team would be beneficial to all rural doctors, like those in Bradford, since the research findings and recom-mendations would be shared to help improve cancer treatment and postoperative care at the local level. It may even begin to shorten the traveling distance for patients, which Evans insists is important for those with cancers such as ovarian to have the re-sources, available treatments and support that she had.

“I always wear this bracelet that says ‘wings,’ and I tell people that everyone has wings and everyone can fly, inspired by the Jimmy Buffet song,” Evans ex-

plained. “What that means is that, if you have a positive attitude and take a proactive approach, you can fly and you can beat this, and you can show others their wings, too.

“It doesn’t have to be a death sentence. I never saw it that way. I saw it as a challenge that had to be tackled one step at a time — and that’s my biggest piece of advice for those battling cancer: Take it one step at a time. Look at the situation head-on, develop a plan of attack and then do it and don’t give in.”

Fundraising efforts are un-derway in both Bradford and Pittsburgh through book sales and solicitations of individuals, foundations, civic organizations and businesses. Tax-deductible donations can be made at www.pittsburghfoundation.org or mailed to the Foundation at Five PPG Place, Pittsburgh, PA 15222; or mailed directly to Susan and George Evans, 33 Berva Drive, Bradford, PA 16701. All donations are payable to The Pittsburgh Foundation, notation: Evans/Kri-vak Fund.

Evans said the fund is in ex-emplary hands with The Pitts-burgh Foundation because it has earned an impeccable reputation for honoring all donations and perpetuating restricted donor-advised funds such as the Evans/Krivak. The foundation’s admin-istrative support and sensible modest overhead are further incentives to pursue funding, she added.

“I know that it’s a huge task to find a cure for ovarian cancer, and with medical and financial help, and hope, perhaps someday there will be a cure,” Evans said. “But for now, let’s focus on de-veloping a test for this silent killer so that it can be detected when it matters the most.”

For, as Evans described, the most important means of over-coming the battle is “one step at a time.”

And to women who are or have gone through what she has, Evans offered some personal, proactive advice.

“Break the silence,” she said. “Get to a doctor the moment you think something’s off — it’s amazing what the medical profession can do, and you’d be surprised how subconsciously aware of changes in your body you naturally are. Most women are well-educated on the symp-toms of breast cancer, skin can-cer and others. Be that vigilant with ovarian cancer, because around 14,000 women die a year from this, and that num-ber means something when it includes someone you know.”

Ovarian cancer survivor’s message to women:

Take the positive, proactive approach

Photo submittedSenate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, R-Brockway, and the Penn-sylvania Senate recently recognized Bradford, Pa., resident Susan Evans on the Senate floor for promoting ovar-ian cancer research and awareness. Evans is a retired Bradford Area High School English teacher, a cancer survi-vor and the author of the book “Don’t Write The Obituary Yet.”

By Amber TurbaSpecial to Twin Tiers Woman

NEW YORK (AP) — Hollywood actress, director and author Drew Barrymore may soon add a new title to her resume: international retailer.

Barrymore launched her Flower brand of afford-able cosmetics exclusively at Wal-Mart in 2013. Now she says she’s in talks with retailers overseas to sell the cosmetics in such places as China, South America, Australia and the United Kingdom. She’ll also be launching her own e-commerce business later this year.

Last year, she started selling an eyewear collection, also exclusively with Wal-Mart. And Barrymore told The Associated Press earlier this week she wants to expand into clothing, though it’s unlikely it will be with Wal-Mart, even though she said she will always give the Bentonville, Arkansas-based discounter “first right of refusal.”

Barrymore didn’t want to use her name for the brand, saying she’s aware of the perils of a slapping celebrity name on a product.

“The name of the game is about how you financial-ly succeed fast enough so somebody doesn’t dump you, and grow slowly and thoughtfully so that you are just not a flash in the pan,” said Barrymore, 40, in a one-hour address at the annual Financo CEO forum, an industry forum sponsored by the investment bank on Monday. Her father-in-law Arie Kopelman, the for-mer president of Chanel, led the discussion in a room full of several hundred fashion industry executives.

Barrymore, the mother of two toddlers, has found a successful niche in the beauty business. Unlike other cosmetic brands that spend a big portion of their money on advertising, the Flower brand spends most of its money on formulations and packaging. That results in premium makeup quality, she said. Flower Beauty, launched in 1,600 stores, is now in 2,500 stores, according to Wal-Mart spokeswoman Molly Blakeman. Neither Barrymore nor Wal-Mart offered sales volume.

The Flower Beauty line, which includes fragrances, ranges from $5 for lip gloss to about $14 for founda-tion. Barrymore’s message is about self-empower-ment and inner beauty, with messages like, “Happiness

is the best makeup.”Wal-Mart says that the Flower eyewear is in all its

stores that have vision centers, which number close to 3,000. Barrymore said it is the No. 1 brand of eyewear at the discounter, although Wal-Mart could not con-firm that publicly. It ranges in price from $39 to $88.

Wal-Mart, she said, has been a “great” partner. But, she added, “at the end of the day, it is business. It is not friendship. They will drop us like a hot potato if we are not doing well.”

As for her clothing venture, Barrymore, known for her Bohemian chic style, noted she won’t be offering

expensive clothes. “It’s not the way I shop,” she said.Barrymore says that she gets inspiration from a lot

of sources for her beauty collection“You will look at a woman’s shoe and be inspired

by the color,” she said. “I am always looking at every-thing for pigments and colors. The other day I took my daughter’s paint and I couldn’t stop playing with it ... I think whatever keeps you up at night ... that is what you should be doing. And if it feels like you are forcing yourself to be inspired by it, that’s the wrong road.”

Drew Barrymore sets new sights for beauty brand

Associated PressDrew Barrymore poses for a portrait to promote her new book “Wildflower,” in New York. Barrymore, 40, who launched her Flower brand of affordable cosmetics exclusively at Wal-Mart in 2013, says she’s in discussions with various retailers overseas to sell her cosmetics in such countries as China, South America, Australia and United Kingdom.

By Anne D’InnocenzioAP Retail Writer