Sadly, Sandy Schaffer passed on July 18, 2022 after a lengthy illness.

I’ve known Marilyn Wann for years as a friend and colleague in the size acceptance movement. She was a powerful force of nature when she opened her heart and home in California to Sandy nearly three years ago. Marilyn was kind to keep us updated as Sandy’s health declined – helping us speak with her on the phone in her last weeks. The following was shared by Marilyn.

“I am very sad to share the news that Sandra Schaffer passed away this morning. She was a Fat National Treasure and an indomitable freedom fighter.

She grew up in a radical, politically engaged family and went to more street demonstrations than anyone could count. She worked for the Farm Workers in California in her youth. Back east, she ran a free daycare for young children from local Communist Party families while she worked as a diner waitress all over New York and New Jersey. Later, she spent years calculating complicated pay schedules for the musicians union in New York, which she always said was more of a guild than a union. She helped her brother and her mother when they faced long-term illnesses.

She found fat activism and the fat-positive fitness center in Manhattan that Rochelle Rice founded, called In Fitness & In Health. Sandy sought out fitness classes because she was finding it daunting to walk the stairs to her fifth-floor walk-up apartment, in what she called upstate Manhattan (north of Harlem). For the first 5 or 6 months, she refused to buy exercise shoes and wore her Birkenstocks to class…in protest, perhaps, of the bourgeoisie aspects of the fitness industry. But once she laced on a pair of trainers, she went for it. She became a certified aerobics instructor and part of the fun-loving community of fat women who gathered for IFIH classes and retreats. Her suitcases during that time were stuffed full of homemade tutus and rainbow-colored boas and other items necessary for convincing people to put on impromptu musical theater shows with DIY lyrics. She joined Toastmasters and did public speaking about fat activism and fitness. She loved it when she got to speak to NYC bus drivers and introduce them to fat-friendly fitness. (She always took buses rather than subway if she could.)
I met Sandy years ago at a NAAFA convention in Boston. For decades, I knew I could call on her to show up for media interviews and fat activism opportunities in the NYC area. She organized a NAAFA chapter for a long time.

I heard so many of Sandy’s stories — and am now a keeper of them — because she came to live with me when I was caring for my father in Southern California, in the home where I grew up. She found herself needing housing and support in accessing medical care. I needed company and backup while being a round-the-clock caregiver. When COVID happened, we were not as isolated as we would have been and we kept each other safe.”

Sandy will be deeply missed.

Fly freely my friend. xo

Love,

Rochelle

 

Image: A fat, white, Jewish woman with brown hair is smiling a huge smile, sitting in a recliner. Her arms are raised high to display a large, crocheted, granny-square afghan that she’s just finished. She has a crochet hook sticking jauntily from her mouth. The yarn came from Marilyn’s mother’s stash.