Barb Pfanz hails from middle-class Bayside, Queens. She graduated from the School of Visual Arts in 1978 and proceeded to join the life of many other art school majors to become a ‘Jean of all trades.’ Citing just a few: waitressing, working at a bakery, cooking for the rich and not-so-famous on land and sea, an illustrator, and her favored profession as a balloon craftswoman providing blow-and-go for Hullaballoons (before we knew balloons didn’t mesh with the planet.)

Barb found her calling in the pressrooms lurking in the Print District in NYC. It was there she made her way inside the doors of Tower Press — the all-women-feminist printer to the gay community. It was the early 1980’s and the lesbian melodrama that swirled through the presses was fodder for the shelves of Woman Books, Oscar Wilde, Djuna Books, and the like. This felt like the right place to be. In keeping up with pressroom intrigue, Barb was hired by her soon-to-be life partner at Tower, owner Robin Imandt. Thus, 1988 started their very long engagement.

The 1990s proved to be a big change for the two Manhattanites. Seeing a large population of women moving east to the North Fork, and taking advantage of low real estate prices, they carefully configured their finances to buy a home in East Marion. Reinventing themselves, they cut the cord to the city and moved permanently to the ‘blessed North Fork’ as it was frequently called.

In 1994 they were invited to the home of Marianne Weil and Diane Bratcher who were having an auction to benefit the good works of the newly founded North Fork Women for Women Fund. They went and their eyes were opened to a crowd of women Barb had never seen before. It was those LESBIANS they heard so much about!

After getting their 1860s house in order, Barb found time to start volunteering for the group. She put her knowledge of databases and graphics to use, updated a few workflows, and pitched in if someone could use a hand. Fast forward a decade to 2013, she was asked to work on a continuing basis for the North Fork Women for Women Fund to aid women who wanted to take the organization to the next level. Over a decade later, she’s still at it.

It’s said that happiness is doing something you love, over and over again, and never getting tired of it. For Barb, combining her jumble of personal experience, while being privy to the knowledge of the many amazing North Fork Women she met is a fantastic place to find herself. The goal of North Fork Women is to lend a hand to those in the community who need it, and to make a community out of the invisible — and make them visible, and known to each other, and to be proud. Being part of this makes Barb very happy.