How Can I Help?
You Can Touch the Life of Someone with Cancer in many ways. Here are a few:
Volunteer your time. Warm, compassionate, understanding individuals are always a welcome addition to creating a positive environment for cancer patients.
Support your local cancer organizations by participating in the walks, dinner events and supporting community health fairs.
www.komen.org
Vote – keep informed about cancer legislation and participate in action alerts.
Share your cancer experience with someone who is going through a similar diagnosis. Buddy programs are a perfect way to help other cancer survivors.
www.mdanderson.org/departments/andersonnet/
Write a check to your local cancer organizations.
Use your special talent Are you an artist? A musician? A seamstress? A fashion maven? Your opportunity to apply your talent is only limited by our collective imaginations.
Donating Blood, Platelets or Bone MarrowThis is perhaps the most personal of all acts of volunteerism. With the most direct and immediate of returns. Your blood flowing through another’s veins; your marrow making life-giving blood cells and providing hope for a future that couldn’t exist without you.
www.unitedbloodservices-ep.org/
Sooner or Later, You’re Gonna’ Need SOMONE on Your Side:
El Paso’s First Cancer Survivors Network
One of the most daunting components of starting on the path of a cancer diagnosis is the sudden entrance into a strange new world that is filled with new lingo, new worries, new needs and unfamiliar issues. One wishes for an “On-Star-like” navigation device that will point your way through this new world, telling you which way to turn, what to be wary of and that will hold your hand along the way making the trip easier to navigate – well, just on the horizon is the arrival of a new program name The Alliance Network.
Based on buddy programs and support networks from MD Anderson Cancer Center and other agencies across the country that have begun similar projects, The Alliance Network is set to build a membership of cancer survivors and cancer caregivers that volunteer their time and experience to provide guidance to newly diagnosed patients and first-time cancer caregivers. The reasoning behind the connection of “experienced” survivors and caregivers with newer ones is so that good information can be shared that will make access to services, to support and to solid answers easier to get to.
Bearing the moniker, “Someone On Your Side”, the network is set to begin with thirty survivors signed up as of this writing. The program will include a membership card that will afford discounts and special services for “Allies” at area merchants and providers as a bonus for sharing your time and knowledge. What you know and share can greatly enrich someone’s life and maybe even save it. To become an “Ally” within this network, please call the Rio Grande Cancer Foundation at 915-562-7660.
~ Often, we are too slow to recognize how much and in what ways we can assist each other through sharing such expertise and knowledge. ~ Owen Arthur
