Great News, and Even Better News!

First, the Great News...
We are always tremendously humbled and grateful for the support we receive from individual donors through memorials, annual gifts, and participation in our fundraising events. But, as any non-profit representative will tell you, grants and proposals that get funded are especially sweet due to the tremendous amount of work that goes into them. Research, forecasting and analysis of our programs and the demographics we believe will be served by the requested funding can be time-consuming, but doing them well is vital to being able to perform our mission in the way it needs to be performed. 

So, you'll understand our excitement about a grant that was awarded to Hope Cancer Resources in January by the Arkansas Cancer Coalition. We will receive $29,890 from the ACC for a Skin Cancer Awareness program that will be managed by Sandy Prince, our VP of Cancer Education and Prevention, and Rebekah Billingsley, our Community Cancer Education Coordinator. 

The purpose of the grant is to educate students in rural elementary schools, parents and children in the Arkansas Head Start programs, and college students at the University of Arkansas. We are also hoping to be featured at the Arvest Ballpark during Northwest Arkansas Naturals baseball games during the month of May - Skin Cancer Awareness month. 

The awareness education will be centered on the "Slip-Slap-Slop" campaign and will be interactive to show how to apply sunscreen correctly. The five basic steps are:

1. Shake the bottle well;
2. Use about 1oz. of sunscreen for the whole body;
3. Apply sunscreen 30 minutes before going outside;
4. Cover all skin exposed to sun
5. Reapply every 2 hours. 

We will use a twin image UV Detect Camera that is designed to reveal sun damage below the skin's surface to show some graphic images to those willing to see what the sun can do. On one side, the image is a normal black and white photo. On the other side, the image appears revealing hidden sun damage to the skin. We will put more information here about skin cancer in May... check back for that! 

and now, the Even Better News...
While receiving financial support is always good news for a non-profit organization, looking at how our programs benefit the people we serve makes us feel even better. Our mission is to provide compassionate, professional cancer support and education in the Northwest Arkansas region today and tomorrow - and our most recent departmental reports show that we are doing exactly that.

When donations are made to Hope Cancer Resources, the gifts have an immediate, positive impact on families in our area. In just the past six months, we have been able to:

• Provide distress screenings for 632 new patients;
• Purchase 363 prescriptions for 84 individuals as well as receive 54 medications through prescription assistance programs for a total financial value of $60,890.00;
• Provide 222 patients with financial assistance needs such as rent/mortgage payments, car payments, and gas cards for a total of $61,166.00 in assistance;
• Provide one-on-one counseling and support to 15 patients;
• Participate in clinical trials that complement the state-of-the-art research program at Highlands Oncology;
• Provide 51 patients with transportation to daily, weekly or monthly treatments as needed as well as to other medical appointments related to their diagnosis, traveling over 60,000 miles;
• Establish a volunteer program to serve cancer patients and caregivers in all clinics of Highlands Oncology Group.

What a wonderful result to the hard work of our staff and volunteers! We look forward to seeing what the rest of 2010 brings!

As you can see by the change in the look of our blog, we've been experiencing a few changes here in our little corner of the world. Helping Oncology Patients Excel has merged with Northwest Arkansas Radiation Therapy Institute and has now become Hope Cancer Resources. We will continue to offer all of the free programs that were previously managed by the individual agencies, including:

• Cancer Screenings
• Prevention Education
• Interpretation Services
• Emotional Support
• Financial Support
• Support Groups
• Clinical Trial Access
  
• Educational Materials & Speakers
• Transportation Services

The effect this merger will have on our patients, and on the general health and well-being of our friends and neighbors in NW Arkansas, is tremendous. As one agency, we will no longer compete for funding from local grant-making organizations. We will be able to blend our overlapping services and serve a growing number of cancer patients and their caregivers with increased and more focused resources. We are now located in a larger and more centrally-located building. Programs we have had on our "someday" list will now be able to be made a reality. Can you see why we're excited??

A new website is currently in the works, and should be live sometime around the first of the new year. Until then, keep in touch with what's going on here on our blog. It's the season to be thankful, and we at Hope Cancer Resources have a great deal of good things to remember as we contemplate where we are, and where we're headed... and we couldn't do all the good work we do without your help.

Thank YOU, Northwest Arkansas!!