AEPhi Alumnae Walking for Ashleigh

Who knew you could meet your soul sister on tumblr? I was a rising sophomore in Pi chapter at Michigan when I came across a sorority page wondering if anyone could write recommendation letters for PNMs interested in particular sororities - I was sent a young lady named Ashleigh Taylor (now Kaplan), who told me how excited she was to be part of Beta Zeta at UCF. One day, as I held her hand (as best I could from Ann Arbor) through UCF recruitment, she asked me if I would be her “fairy godbig,” so that we could still be family even if she didn’t get the AEPhi bid she wanted so badly.

Needless to say, the BZ sisters loved Ashleigh as much as I do and welcomed her with open arms and we officially became AEPhi sisters in the Fall of 2013.

Life was beautiful! Ashleigh met her champion, Brett, at the start of her senior year and over the years I watched them go through so many beautiful life events together. In 2022, I stood by her side as a bridesmaid while she and Brett tied the knot! All of Ashleigh’s dreams were coming true.

For as long as I have known her, Ashleigh has wanted nothing more than to be a mum, as she would say. In the Summer of 2024, Eliana was born & became the light of Ashleigh & Brett’s world.

In 2025, as her breastfeeding journey came to an end, Ashleigh noticed something was off—a heaviness, redness & pain in her left breast. The diagnosis? Mastitis—a very common infection that can be treated with antibiotics, but when 3 different rounds of antibiotics weren’t working, she found herself back with the doctors searching for answers.

At just barely 30 years old, Ashleigh received the news that would change her life forever. Ashleigh never had mastitis. She had Inflammatory Breast Cancer, a rare and aggressive type. Doctors encouraged her to start treatment—immediately. Even though she had been proactive, her cancer had already reached Stage 4.

One of our first calls upon receiving the news was to Sharsheret, who immediately set Ashleigh up with all of the right resources to attack her diagnosis and gave her a broader support network that either of us could ever have imagined in the days of telling PNMs about them in a million philanthropy rounds in a row.

With such shocking & scary news, Brett & Ashleigh started looking for the most specialized care in the country. Ashleigh now is a patient with MD Anderson Cancer Center & is confident in her team. She is completing sixteen grueling rounds of chemotherapy at home in Florida before moving out to Texas with her family to complete surgery & radiation. It is with great hope that under MD Anderson’s care, Ashleigh has the potential to not just live with cancer, but to achieve full remission.

The road is long and the light at the end of the tunnel flickers but I have never seen anyone run at it so hard in my life.

I have had the blessing of knowing and loving Ashleigh for the last twelve years, over a third of my life, and I wouldn’t have her in the first place if not for AEPhi. I don’t know how to walk or talk or be in the world without my girl. We will all do anything and everything we can to help her succeed and it all gets easier with the support of our sisters. Please join us, either to walk in Central Park on Sunday, October 19th, or by supporting Sharsheret.