This semester I will be focusing on a passion of mine- helping others, or in other words volunteering. I have always found it important to give back and I enjoy participating in a variety of activities that allow me to do so. Throughout this blog, I will look at past volunteering experiences I have had, as well as some new ones I will participate in here, and explain why I enjoyed the experience and what I learned from it. I hope to inspire my readers to find some local volunteer opportunities to get involved with. Our community supports us in more ways than we realize and we should give back to them when we have the opportunity to.
The Cause:
Today's post is about the volunteer work I did with the Healing Consciousness Foundation. The Healing Consciousness Foundation (HCF) is a non-profit started by Dr. Beth Dupree with the goal of helping people with breast cancer go through treatment in a way that heals their whole body, not just the medical aspect that gets rid of the cancer. The HCF is closely associated with Holy Redeemer Hospital's breast cancer program, where Dr. DuPree often practices.
The Cause:
Today's post is about the volunteer work I did with the Healing Consciousness Foundation. The Healing Consciousness Foundation (HCF) is a non-profit started by Dr. Beth Dupree with the goal of helping people with breast cancer go through treatment in a way that heals their whole body, not just the medical aspect that gets rid of the cancer. The HCF is closely associated with Holy Redeemer Hospital's breast cancer program, where Dr. DuPree often practices.
Dr. Dupree explaining the foundation's holistic healing approach.
What I Did:
I got involved with this foundation when a family friend asked my mom to be the Volunteer Chair for the group's bi-annual Fashion Event fundraiser, created to raise money for the foundation and awareness for certain aspects of cancer. I mentioned that I would love to help and ended up the Volunteer Recruitment and Management Co-Chair with my mother. I was focused on finding out what volunteer positions there were and finding students to fill them for the event. I ended up working with the adults too and the day of the event managed over 200 volunteers to run the event that ended up raising over $100,000 and bringing in over 300 guests.
After meeting the executive director at a meeting for the event, I ended up contacting her to see if I could do an unpaid internship with the foundation over the summer. So, I ended up also volunteering with the organization in this way. As an intern the summer before senior year, I saw the day in and day out operations of keeping track of all of their practitioners, people who offered services to the cancer patients and survivors, through Google Drive and DonorPro, as well as helping lead a social media campaign. Also, I attended different events, like retreats and cooking classes, the foundation held.
What I Learned:
While volunteering with HCF as an intern I learned practical skills of how to use different programs and working in a team, but those weren't the important lessons.
I learned about being a "thriver." A "thriver" is a term the HCF uses to show that the foundation's members are not just surviving cancer but they are thriving while they have it and as they recover from beating it.
Attending events while interning and having a chance to work with, meet, and talk to the women and men going through breast cancer was really eye opening. It allowed me to see how much having a strong community, such as HCF, helps someone recover from and beat cancer. In my opinion these people were truly thriving. They were taking an extremely difficult situation that life threw at them and rather than just feeling sorry for themselves and taking some medicine, they were facing the situation head on and were determined to defeat it, even if it meant changing their lifestyle. Although many of the people I met at the retreats and cooking classes were probably experiencing one of their weakest time periods physically, they were emotionally and mentally some of the strongest people I have ever met.
It may be a bit difficult to understand what I mean by "thrivers" so here is the beginning of Dr. DuPree's speech on Survivor's to Thrivers.
Survivor to Thriver
While running the actual Fashion Event that culminated my summer with HCF I learned lots of leadership skills. These included communicating in a clear, concise manner via email and also over a walkie talkie system to get things accomplished as soon as they needed to be done. I also learned about needing to be able to think on your feet when something goes wrong. For example, the power of an entire wall went out at the event preventing the band from playing or the coffee machines from working. We got the issue fixed, but it was not something we expected to happen.
However, these, once again, were not the important lessons I learned.
At the Fashion Event. I learned about the necessity to celebrate. These men and women work so hard to get better, truly heal, and change their lives. It will most likely be a long journey for them so when they get the chance they should and need to be able to celebrate. A lesson that goes hand in hand with this is how the community needs to be there for people as the fight their battle.
This video is from the HCF Fashion Event before the one I helped run, but it shows the true meaning of celebrating with the community by your side.
All of these lessons can carry over to all parts of life. They make it easier to succeed and have a good time. So, always remember to strive to thrive rather than just surviving, celebrate when you can, and stand by those who need you the most.
How will you show your support?
However, these, once again, were not the important lessons I learned.
At the Fashion Event. I learned about the necessity to celebrate. These men and women work so hard to get better, truly heal, and change their lives. It will most likely be a long journey for them so when they get the chance they should and need to be able to celebrate. A lesson that goes hand in hand with this is how the community needs to be there for people as the fight their battle.
This video is from the HCF Fashion Event before the one I helped run, but it shows the true meaning of celebrating with the community by your side.
All of these lessons can carry over to all parts of life. They make it easier to succeed and have a good time. So, always remember to strive to thrive rather than just surviving, celebrate when you can, and stand by those who need you the most.
How will you show your support?
With so many organizations that help people with cancer and survivors of cancer, one seems to overshadow them all, Four Diamonds. It is so refreshing to read about another organization that supports adults and all backgrounds. I liked your section on survivor to thriver and the support after cancer that this organization gives to its survivors. More often than not it feels like organizations are focused on the people they support during their cancer journey.
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