14 | APRIL 8 • 2021
A
merciful endeavor begun two
decades ago by a Southfield rabbi
to bring relief to young cancer
patients has enlarged to offer encouragement
and support to physically healthy, but under-
privileged schoolkids in Oak Park.
It’s been five years since 10-year-old cancer
survivor Leah Vincenzetti became involved
with Kids Kicking Cancer, the organization
founded by Rabbi Elimelech Goldberg in
1999 that teaches self-control and deep
breathing techniques found in the martial
arts to help ameliorate ailing children’s pain.
Leah’s journey typifies the nearly 12,000
youngsters who have become both warriors
in (and ambassadors of) the organization
over the course of its existence. Empowered
with an inner strength learned through
KKC’s programs, along with Goldberg’s
mantra of “Power, Peace, Purpose,
” the
fourth-grader speaks easily about how KKC
has given her the tools to assuage the fear
and pain that cancer creates.
“I’ve been able to teach people power
breathing so it can help them whenever they
need to calm down,
” Leah explains during a
Zoom conversation we had after school one
day. “Or if you go to the hospital and you
get nervous, it’s easier when you just breathe
through it.
”
Breathing through it for Leah calls upon
another tool in the KKC program: the refrain
of “Breathing in the light and blowing out
the darkness.
” The simplicity of the message
and related programming built around its
ethos has resonance. The organization has
grown from a local Detroit outfit to a world-
wide nonprofit, with chapters in nine states
and six countries across three continents.
The palliative care protocol that KKC
offers its clients — including those with
non-cancer diseases through its Heroes
Circle division — are rooted in the concept
of somatic breathing: a sophisticated form
of conscious breathing that teaches how to
deliver more oxygen to the brain and body.
The science behind deep breathing is
awash with studies demonstrating empirical
efficacy in reducing anxiety, pain and the
effects of trauma. Western medicine has
been playing catch-up to what many prac-
titioners of the martial arts, like Goldberg,
have known for thousands of years: The
mind can play tricks, and each person has
the ability to control their mind.
And because conscious breathing is both
an effective and low-cost way people of all
ages can reduce the body’s level of cortisol —
the hormone released to curb functions that
would be nonessential in a fight-or-flight sit-
uation — breathing techniques abound.
Goldberg packaged his teaching in a way
that uniquely appeals to children: through
the guise of learning martial arts.
HEROES CIRCLE IN OAK PARK
KKC and its Heroes Circle’s successful track
record helping pediatric patients led to a
series of meetings that began in August 2017
between its founder and the then-superin-
tendent of Oak Park Schools, Dr. Daveda
Colbert. The discussions included exploring
ways programming like KKC’s could be
adapted to help students struggling with the
myriad psycho-social problems that often
plague low-income students of color.
“We realized we had a tool that could
accomplish great things for a great many
people, children in particular” Goldberg
explains. “It could lower the stress and suf-
fering of children facing trauma that may not
be medical in nature, but more cultural and
socio-economic challenges; those challenges
disproportionately fall on children of color.
“
And the more we were learning about
childhood trauma, in general, and how
adverse childhood experiences negatively
impact the immunological system, we're
seeing that those children are then becoming
our patients because stress severely impacts
the immune system — so many parts of the
human body — in a negative way.
”
Colbert and Goldberg approached the D.
Dan and Betty Kahn Foundation to vet the
idea of creating a curriculum adhering to
the state of Michigan’s educational guide-
lines while also teaching students how to
self-regulate, increase their attentiveness and
decrease their anxiety.
Like its progenitor, the curriculum would
be a Trojan Horse of learning: Martial arts
therapists would come to the school for
in-person lessons, augmenting the curricu-
lum teachers would be provided.
Larry Wolfe, president of the Kahn
Foundation, was convinced and gave the
green light to fund a pilot program that
would track the children’s progress with the
help of scientists at Wayne State University
Rabbi Elimelech Goldberg,
known to the kids as Rabbi G., founded
Kids Kicking Cancer in 1999. He and
his wife lost their first child, a daughter,
to leukemia in 1981 at age 2.
continued on page 16
OUR COMMUNITY
ON THE COVER
Rabbi Goldberg’s program brings power,
peace and purpose to young Oak Parkers.
BRYAN GOTTLIEB CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Inner
Power!