In light of the recent pandemic, we look forward to sharing positive stories about how our clients and community members are responding. We know this is a challenging time for many, and we are here to support. We hope by sharing these very brief stories through our social media channels that others will feel they are not alone. We encourage others to lift each other up and share their stories.
Joseph Yurgevich, Executive Director at Cancer Lifeline
Cancer Lifeline is an organization whose mission is to provide resources and support patients through their cancer journey. Ostara connected with Joseph Yurgevich, Executive Director at Cancer Lifeline, to learn how they are adapting to offer their services amid COVID-19.
“We started adapting the first week of March realizing that the high-risk populations were basically everyone that we normally serve. We first moved to get our cancer support groups online. All of our programs had been in person up to this point.We did a couple of pilots first and discovered Zoom was actually very effective for the support group format. With some minor adjustments, it was really a go. We continued expanding to other types of programming we do. I have a group of wildly over-achieving program staff who just took the challenge and ran with it. By the week of March 22nd, we had gotten the majority of our programs on Zoom as well.
I’m really thrilled that we can continue delivering our mission during this time. Cancer is known to take away control of our environment and situation in life and cancer can be a very isolating disease because other people don’t understand the perspective you share. So, it’s just really fantastic to be able to offer our programs when social distancing is being required.
My advice? Continue to have hope. Continue to look at what’s happening underneath the surface. Underneath the distancing…because there is a lot of inspiration to gather from what our fellow humans are doing during this time.”– Joseph Yurgevich, Executive Director at Cancer Lifeline
To learn more about Cancer Lifeline and their programs, check out their website: https://cancerlifeline.org
We would love to hear how your organization has been adapting to provide services to your clients and how we can support you during this time. Please reach out to us online here.