Hampton Jitney & Ellen Hermanson Foundation Team Up for Breast Cancer Awareness 

This Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a pink-wrapped Hampton Jitney coach bus can be seen traveling along the Long Island Expressway, up Third Avenue and down Lexington Avenue, and throughout the Hamptons.

A gift from Hampton Jitney President Geoff Lynch, the bus adorned with The Ellen Hermanson Foundation’s name, aims to spread awareness and share information about the nonprofit’s efforts, which is approaching the 30th anniversary of its founding.

“Local foundations like the EHF are a great benefit to our community, and Hampton Jitney is honored to lend our support,” Lynch said in a statement.

Julie Ratner, co-founder and chairwoman of the Southampton-based foundation, said she hopes when people see the bus, they feel inspired to take time to learn about their work and commitment to the community.

“People, I think, admire the work of the foundation because we keep our money local and it’s all about providing access to state-of-the-art breast healthcare,” she said. “He offered us this extraordinary gift of wrapping one of their ambassador buses with our logo and information about The Ellen Hermanson Foundation.”

During the Sept. 24 Southampton Village Board meeting, Trustee Robin Brown acknowledged the Hampton Jitney, celebrating how the community not only comes together to support, but also to educate.

After what she described as the “worst year of my life,” Ratner co-founded the foundation with her sister, Emily Levin, in 1996 to help women fighting breast cancer. The foundation, named in honor of their younger sister, Ellen, who died of breast cancer in 1995 at age 42.

“She was such an extraordinary woman. I loved her. She was, in so many ways, my closest friend— we shared a life together in my parents’ house,” Ratner said of her sister, who was diagnosed with breast cancer at 36.

“Her child was six months old when she was diagnosed and six years old when she died,” Ratner said. “I wanted to carry on her memory. I wanted my niece to know that she had an extraordinary mother, who adored her.”

Ratner said her sister was an activist and advocate in her fight against breast cancer, and when she died, it was important for her to carry on that work.

“I’ll never stop missing my sister,” she said. “I sometimes feel a little incredulous that because she was once here, we’ve been able to carry on what was important to her and other people who I’ll never know–which I love—will be able to benefit from the time she spent with us.”

Ratner recalled that while she had experience running marathons and knew how to prepare for a race, organizing one physically was a different feat. Her mother had pointed out that she didn’t know what she was doing. But Ratner responded, “That never stopped before,” and went ahead with the first Ellen’s Run. They were so ambitious that they called it the “annual” Ellen’s Run from the start. They held the 29th run in August.

There were moments when Ratner questioned how she could carry on without her sister. “It gave me strength, knowing that I was doing something for Ellen,” she said.