Carol Anne Clark may have left this temporal world, but her pay-it-forward spirit continues to enrich the lives of others. After succumbing to a seven-year battle with breast cancer in October 2011, the former Malibuite and Malibu Creek State Park bookkeeper’s dream to help others with the disease has become a reality.
The Carol House, a nonprofit designed to provide assistance to cancer patients who have also suffered catastrophic financial loss due to their illness, opened its first home last October and welcomed its first family.
“Carol was the kind of person who would give a homeless person a dollar, even if she didn’t have it to give,” Carol’s husband, Ron Prudhomme, said. “She was always paying it forward. There were times when I thought we’d run out of money.”
This generosity of spirit had made Clark immensely popular during the years she managed the Blockbuster video store in Malibu, when local celebrities like Pierce Brosnan and Cher would seek her advice on new releases. When the Old Topanga wildfire roared through Malibu in 1993, Clark provided fire crews with lodging and food at her state park home and showed out-of-state responders short cuts through the area.
So when she was diagnosed with Stage II breast cancer in 2004, she carried an indomitable nature into the endless hospital and treatment center visits she endured for the next several years, cheering on discouraged patients and celebrating their victories.
“We met so many women going through unbelievable struggles, first with their illness, then with seeing their homes foreclosed on,” Prudhomme said. “I met six women whose husbands had abandoned them after they were diagnosed, leaving them basically penniless. Carol just couldn’t stand it.”
So she became an advocate. She envisioned a foundation that would raise the funds necessary to help breast cancer patients who must navigate the labyrinthine world of social security disability forms, insurance claims and denials of service, and loss of home and transportation. She wanted to provide shelter.
Studies have shown that more than 50 percent of bankruptcies in this country are attributable to the financial pressures of health crises, even for families with health insurance. Clark dreamed of developing housing alternatives that would provide not just a clean environment for an afflicted family, but appropriate support resources, home health care and hospice care when necessary.
Although she was told that success for such a venture was a long shot, Clark was undeterred, and laid the framework for a foundation to address the needs of cancer patients. Unfortunately, she did not live long enough to see the first Carol House realized. But a year after she died, Prudhomme had applied for a nonprofit 501(c)3 license and settled its first family into a Carol House—a home in Valencia that happened to be Clark’s and Prudhomme’s.
“I told Carol that I wasn’t going to live in a 2,000-square-foot house alone, so we donated our house as the first Carol House,” Prudhomme said.
He moved in with Clark’s sister Cathy Libitsky and her husband. They all work on the board of the new foundation during their time off. The first family to move in is a woman receiving treatment for Stage II breast cancer, with her 13-year-old daughter and a five-year-old grandson from another daughter. She had been living in a trailer in the high desert, surrounded by gang activity and far from treatment centers.
Prudhomme said that when they began a search for a family to host, they were overwhelmed with applications. Fortunately, neighbors have been generous with help (“They all were friends with Carol,” Prudhomme said.), and they are looking to open another Carol House in Santa Clarita soon.
Prudhomme has appealed for donations from his community with “storefront fundraisers”—mostly himself handing out flyers in front of the local Trader Joe’s. His efforts have attracted offers from several large chains supplying grocery cards (Ralphs, Vons, Trader Joe’s), offers of grants from the Susan Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and negotiations with Bank of America to donate a foreclosed home.
“We have raised some awareness,” Prudhomme said. “As soon as our 501c3 status comes through, we’ll start fundraising big time.”
Libitsky said her sister would have been thrilled with the progress.
“Carol was such a people person,” Libitsky said. “She was always picking up people down on their luck and bringing them home. In a way, she still is.”
To find out more about The Carol House, visit the website thecarolhouse.org. Donations of $250 or less are still tax deductible while waiting for The Carol House’s 501(c)3 status to be confirmed.