Selling clothing for the cause

Deepa Bharath

Lee Murphy is a cheerleader for breast cancer survivors.

This year Murphy, 54, who owns Pink Wasabi in Newport Coast is

making her contribution by selling silk scarves to benefit the Susan

G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

Murphy’s store, which sells women’s clothing and accessories, is

one of designer Lilly Pulitzer’s 51 signature stores in the country.

Pulitzer also designed the breast cancer awareness pink scarf for the

foundation this year to help raise money for breast cancer research.

The scarves have pink and white borders with a pistachio green

background interspersed with pink and white flowers. It also has a

pink bow in a corner, the foundation’s symbol.

Murphy opened her store at the Crystal Cove Shopping Center in

November, but she has been enthusiastic about Breast Cancer Awareness

Month every October for the last 10 years.

“I’ve owned a woman’s clothing store in San Francisco for the last

10 years,” she said. “I’ve met so many young and older women with

breast cancer. It’s so rampant these days that more research is

absolutely necessary to find a cure for this disease.”

Murphy has not lost any close family members to breast cancer, but

she has lost a few “very close friends.”

All of the money from the sale of the scarves at Pink Wasabi will

go to the foundation. Most of the money -- about 75% of the money

raised will be used to fund education, spread awareness and provide

services and treatment to patients and survivors, while 25% will go

into the foundation’s national fund for research.

“The scarves are the perfect gift because they give twice -- to

one a gift of beauty and to another a gift of life,” Murphy said.

The scarves cost $30 a piece and can be purchased locally at the

Pink Wasabi and at Bloomingdale’s.

The response has been terrific, Murphy said.

“We had 300 scarves to start with,” she said. “We have only 44

left. But we’ll get more and we’ll b selling them till December.”

Murphy said she gets tremendous satisfaction from contributing her

share to spread awareness.

“Just knowing that we can make women more aware and help them

learn the importance of having annual check-ups and mammograms is a

great satisfaction for me,” she said.