Special Edition: "'Tis Our Season" Youth T-Shirt

Lisa Latempa is mother to an 8 year-old son, wife, special education teacher in Buffalo Public Schools, professional DJ, and co-founder of B.flo-Girls, a nonprofit supporting and uplifting young girls through the hip-hop culture, music, and dance that helped shape who Lisa is today. 

In 2019, at just 38, her world shifted with a stage 3 breast cancer diagnosis. She moved through a blur of chemo, surgeries, and radiation with determination, only to face the cancer’s return a year and a half later. More treatment followed, including a double mastectomy. Then, in October 2023, she learned cancer had spread to her bones, becoming stage 4 metastatic. After two clinical trials proved unsuccessful, and recent scans not yielding the results she had hoped for, she continues regular chemotherapy infusions at Roswell.

Faced with the reality that there is no conventional cure for stage 4 breast cancer, Lisa has embraced an integrative approach, adding alternative therapies that support her wellness and mindset. She maintains remarkable positivity while caring for her son as he explores his love for martial arts, swimming, and academics, providing for her students and school, and still finds time to DJ and offer creative events for the Buffalo community. The therapies she relies on help her stay grounded, hopeful, and present.

Lisa doesn’t see her journey as a battle. She sees it as creating the best possible space for her body to heal, honoring her own internal power, embracing community support, and exploring evidence-based treatment options. Support from this campaign will help her continue the therapies that allow her to sustain her well-being and keep moving forward with strength and grace.

Please consider a purchase or donation to Lisa's online fundraiser.

Eat Off Art is a collaborative of artists, educators and entrepreneurs working to build a more empathetic community. We do this through creating and sharing our art, welcoming people into our studio and community space and investing in fellow entrepreneurs.

Alexa and Edreys Wajed, the founders of Eat Off Art, are dynamic artists and creative change agents. Eat Off Art is a multi-dimensional agency, platform, and affirmation all in one, providing transformative experiences through creativity, food, and art, countering the adage of the “starving artist,” in subscription to a new narrative of “thriving artists.”

Eat Off Art is a family-owned and family-run small business based in Buffalo, NY. A husband and wife tandem, both from a lineage of brilliant-minded thinkers, tinkerers, artists, and craftsmen, driven to continue a legacy of creativity.

“Together they are an unstoppable duo who make up Eat Off Art bringing together creative engagement with food politics and the struggle for race and social justice through visual art, sound, and fashion with a critical and creative genius that is truly unique.” – Dr. Camilo Trumper Associate Professor of History, Director of Undergraduate Studies – University at Buffalo (SUNY)

Our main intent is to inspire others through our crafts, passions, and endeavors to believe that there is a way to be successful, sustainable, and profitable as artists, especially married artists, with creative children in tow.