Debby Lee Cohen

August 23, 1959 - April 7, 2024; 28 Adar II 5784

Debby Lee Cohen, renowned artist, animator, educator and anti-plastics activist, died on Sunday, April 7 after living with Stage IV colorectal cancer for nine years. After almost three decades of working in avant-garde theater, film, animation and television and building giant puppets, Debby Lee founded Cafeteria Culture in 2009 as Styrofoam Out of Schools. With passion, perseverance and a huge heart, she led the campaign that eliminated more than half a billion toxic Styrofoam trays per year from public school student meals as well as landfills and incinerators in New York City and 18 other cities across the US. She was honored to receive an Eco-Hero Award from the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) for catalyzing Trayless Tuesdays.

Her efforts to achieve equitable zero waste in public schools paved the way for New York City's 2019, and New York State's 2022, styrofoam bans. Through arts, education and action, working primarily with low income, immigrant public school children, Debby Lee launched Plastic Free Lunch Days in schools, eliminating over 13 million pieces of single-use plastic to date in New York City alone, with countless more in the over 40 school districts nationally that have since adopted this strategy.

Throughout these accomplishments, she shared her creative gifts and supported her students in telling their own stories. Whether she was teaching them to analyze trash in their neighborhoods, build giant foam monster puppets, create their own stop-motion animation projects, or testify at City Hall, she taught students how to be advocates for themselves, environmental justice and a healthier future. Debby Lee stayed working with Cafeteria Culture into her final days and believed passionately that her work would continue beyond her life.

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Debby Lee was the youngest of 4 children raised by parents, Helen and Gil Cohen, who showered them with love and nurtured them to follow their dreams. Her parents imbued them with a great love for music and theater as well as a strong commitment to social justice and the values of progressive Judaism. Debby Lee's first theater engagement was at the age of 5, playing a mouse in a local theater company production of Alice in Wonderland with her father who played the Mad Hatter.

In junior high, Debby Lee became the first girl in Maryland to take "shop" to learn wood work, metal work and mechanical drawing- an area of study formerly restricted to boys only. Learning the use of tools to build things provided the foundation for her work designing and building sets and set models for renowned artists including almost two decades partnering with Meredith Monk and Ping Chong. Debby Lee also collaborated for eight years with David Rousseve doing scenic and puppet design.

Her global view on art, nature, multiculturalism and community was greatly influenced by spending a year in Switzerland during high school through the American Field Service (AFS) exchange student program. Debby Lee studied biology at Goucher College before transferring to Maryland Institute College of Art where she graduated in 1981 with a BFA, after which she moved to New York City.

She was a landscape painter inspired by living part time in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and she designed scenery and props for theater, television and film for over 25 years.

She created a food-themed children's parade with giant puppets in Jardin des Tuileries, Paris, developed the lead puppets for NY City's Village Halloween Parade for 8 years, and art directed "Ascension Variations," Meredith Monk's performance for 120 performers at The Guggenheim Museum (2009) as well as Monk's movie "Book of Days." She designed scenery for productions at BAM, Houston Grand Opera, Lincoln Center and The Almeida Theater in London. For The Lincoln Center Summer Festival's production of "Shadow's Child," she designed the scenery and giant backpack puppets, collaborating with Urban Bush Women and The National Dance Theater of Mozambique.

Her HBO credits include Consultant/ Art Director for "Saving My Tomorrow"; Set Designer for Emmy Award winner, "Classical Baby"; and Segment Producer on "Twas the Night." Debby Lee's animation aired on PBS and MTV. She also taught interdisciplinary arts and environmental education at Parsons the New School, as well as to teens at risk, inmates, seniors and thousands of NYC public school students.

From 2013 until her passing, Debby Lee served as a member of the Manhattan Citizen's Solid Waste Advisory Board (MSWAB). She received a Proclamation from Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer (2018) in recognition of her zero-waste activism and leadership, declaring December 12th "Debby Lee Cohen Day" in Manhattan. Debby Lee also served as Steering Group Chair for the Plastic Free Waters Partnership NY/NJ. She was recognized by the New York State Association for Reduction, Reuse and Recycling with their Lifetime Achievement Award (2022).

Debby Lee met the love of her life, John Molloy, at a Christmas Party in New York City in December 1993 and they married in November 1994. She partnered with her husband designing exhibits and the website for his successful exhibition space, John Molloy Gallery, that features Antique Native American and Contemporary Art.

She is survived by her husband, John T. Molloy (NYC), daughters Maria Minna Molloy (Austin, TX) and Anna Lena Molloy (NYC), stepdaughter Leah Molloy and grandchildren Catherine and John Carlo Colonnello (Connecticut), siblings Jay Wolf Schlossberg-Cohen (Baltimore/San Diego), Ellie Cohen (San Anselmo, CA) and Jeff Cohen (Paris), as well as her Swiss AFS family, the Campolongo's. Debby Lee was buried naturally and with zero-waste (true to her spirit!) at the Town of Rhinebeck Natural Burial Ground.

To honor Debby Lee's legacy and help her activism continue (in lieu of flowers), please make a donation to Cafeteria Culture at https://www.cafeteriaculture.org/.