In the late 2000s, Kara Frazier was living what she called the “Sex and the City” life in New York City: painting the town with her girlfriends, immersed in the dating pool and making bank as a foremost advertising executive attending lively photoshoots. But, as life imitates art, she had a situation similar to the sitcom’s Samantha Jones: a breast cancer diagnosis. The only difference was, she wasn’t in her 50s; she was 26. 

 

She was diagnosed with Stage III breast cancer that had spread to her lymph nodes. During her treatment, which included a double-mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiation she received a pair of pink miniature boxing gloves and a lipstick from a friend as reminder to “fight pretty.” 

 

After beating cancer in 2012, she was inspired to pay it forward. Frazier handed down the miniature boxing gloves that helped her to a family friend diagnosed with cancer. She sent along with some lipstick, a scarf, earrings and a notebook with encouraging words, too.

 

It was the first “pretty package” she sent but would be far from the last. Shortly thereafter, she started giving them to every woman she knew who was going through a similar ordeal, be it cancer or some other personal struggle. 

 

“I sent it off to this woman, Jen, who lived in Virginia, and she loved it and loved the gloves and used them through her breast cancer journey,” recalled Frazier. “And then she passed on those gloves to another woman who had Hodgkin’s lymphoma. And then, that woman passed them onto another woman. 

 

People started reaching to Frazier directly, asking her to talk to their friends and loved ones who were battling cancer. She would happily oblige—and send off more care packages with boxing gloves and lipstick inside.

 

Eventually, Frazier was inspired to transform her thoughtful hobby into a nonprofit called Fighting Pretty. 

In 2013, Frazier launched Fighting Pretty through a Facebook page petitioning people to message her if they were diagnosed with cancer and sought a pretty package. Within a few months, she had 500 orders, which she made in a snug Brooklyn apartment from her own pocket and the kindness of her heart. 

 

After being inundated with requests from people wishing to donate makeup and other supplies in support of the cause, she made her undertaking ironclad with 501 (c) (3) status.

 

Within one year she sent more than 1,000 pretty packages to women in need. In a collaboration with Glossy Box, Fighting Pretty received a $45,000 donation – setting the stage for the nonprofit’s burgeoning success. Fighting Pretty has appeared on the Today Show and was invited to ring the bell on the New York Stock Exchange. The nonprofit has received over $1 million worth of product donations from top cosmetic brands, including Revlon. Additional donors include Le Mini Macaron, Mind & Matter Candles, Thrive Causemetics and Ulta Beauty.

 

Today, Fighting Pretty is helping women battling all types of cancer in the US states and 16 countries globally. 

 

The organization set a goal to help 100,000 women by 2025. 

 

To do so, Fighting Pretty is fundraising through special events. This week, the team hosted an art to auction in New York City. A second fundraiser will be held in Portland, OR in December.

 

For Frazier, her most poignant moment as a nonprofit leader was walking in the New York Fashion Week show for AnaOno Intimates, which designs recovery bras for women who have had breast reconstructive surgery.

 

Today, Frazier lives in Oregon where she continues Fighting Pretty full-time, working full-time as a marketing manager at the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute, dedicating her career to helping women to never lose their sense of feeling pretty, no matter their circumstance. 

 

“It was those little gloves that then hung in my closet that reminded me to never give up and some lipstick that I would always slap on to help myself to feel beautiful,” Frazier told Happi. “I really was ‘fighting pretty’ before Fighting Pretty was even a concept.”

 

To donate, go to fightingpretty.org. Check out a clip of the Portland facility below: