Obituary of Marlene B. Mancini

Marlene Mancini-Parks of Brooklyn, New York passed away on Saturday August 8, 2015. Born and raised on Long Island, Marlene was a warm and outgoing child who made friends easily, rode horses, and painted abstract canvases. Her love of art growing up led to her studying it as an adult, getting her Bachelors of Fine Art in studio art from L.I. University at C.W Post and her Master of Science in Education from Bank Street College; focusing on Museum Education and Elementary Education. Both of which she put into use over the course of her life. She spent her early working years going back and forth between her two loves - art and teaching. She worked for both the Cooper Hewitt museum as an intern and the Staten Island Zoo - Zoo Camp during the summer, all while spending 15 years at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Starting as a sales associate in 1984, she worked her way up to Store Manager in their retail department by 1992, and ran a multi million dollar business for the Met for the next 7 years. The same year she became store manager was the same year she met her future husband, Mark Parks. In 1999, she left the Museum behind for a new challenge. She became the Human Resources manager for a start-up internet company. She spent the next two years there - during that time she got married to Mark and in August of 2000, and gave birth to her beloved son Mark Alessandro Parks, on as she put it "one month and one day before my 42nd birthday!" Marlene left the business world behind and returned to teaching in 2002. First as a day care center director in Brooklyn before going to the Educational Alliance in 2003, where she would teach universal Pre-K until 2012 before becoming Educational Site Director until January 2014. Marlene loved to be around others. She was always quick to go out to social gatherings (many was the time the host would turn around and find Marlene in their kitchen pitching in instead of circulating!) and chat up a storm, but she was just as comfortable in being one on one with any of her dozens of friends that she gathered up in her wake as she blazed through life. They knew if they needed someone to make them laugh or just to lend a sympathetic ear to cry to, they only needed to call Marlene. Although the breast cancer she was diagnosed with in 2006 would ultimately take her life, she never let it control her life. She'd simply say "I do what I have to do" and kept on going. never letting it stop her from working, raising her family, traveling all over, or loving all those friends old and new that she cared for. Loving wife to Mark Parks, loving mother to Mark Alessandro Parks, beloved sister to Francine Hayward, Gregg Mancini and Cara Mancini. Cherished daughter to Rose Lang and Frank Mancini (deceased). Adored friend to scores of people who loved her.