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Why Gilda’s Club Kansas City?
It’s the goal of the Founding Board of Gilda’s Club Kansas City to create a warm, welcoming place so that the people of the Kansas City area will never have to face cancer alone. The Founding Board believes that the establishment of a Gilda’s Club Kansas City clubhouse that is free of charge is an investment in the quality of life for the region.
· Cancer is the leading cause of death in Missouri, with approximately 30,000 new diagnoses each year.
· Three out of every four people will be touched by cancer in their lifetime.
· In 2006 over 9,000 individuals were diagnosed with cancer in the Kansas City metro area. (source: American Cancer Society, Inc. Cancer Facts and Figures 2006)
Gilda’s Club Kansas City fills a gap in the Kansas City cancer community, ensuring that those touched by cancer get free, immediate and ongoing access to emotional and social support.
Gilda’s Club Kansas City is a collaborative organization working side by side with the whole cancer community, not just select organizations or hospitals. It’s time for Kansas City a health care entrepreneur and leader to offer this program that many other communities already offer.
Gilda’s Club Kansas City benefits from its affiliation with a well organized central organization (Gilda’s Club Worldwide) learning best practices from the more than 20 existing clubhouses and 8 provisional clubhouses, including Kansas City are working to open our doors
Today, a number of resources exist in our Kansas City community for people living with cancer. These include hospital and clinic support groups, a variety of patient classes and temporary housing. However, support groups are generally specialized, serving only people living with cancer or specific patient groups, often based on a type of cancer. Classes are sporadic. And few, if any, services address social and emotional needs of people living with cancer on an ongoing basis. Nearly all such classes and support groups leave out key participants in the cancer experience, namely family members and friends. Finally, few programs are offered on a consistent and ongoing basis for teens and children.
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What Makes Gilda’s Club Unique?
· Gilda's Club gives people a place to learn how to live with cancer. More than just offering support groups, Gilda's Club is a place to connect, learn and socialize.
· Gilda's Club offers a home-like environment, free from any formal medical affiliation. Rather than attend support groups in medical facilities, club members and family members find support in a warm and welcoming clubhouse.
· Gilda's Club is easy to join. Anyone living with cancer or any family member or friend can attend a New Member Meeting and complete a CMP (customized membership plan), to explore how Gilda’s Club provides support. Facilitated by Gilda's Club staff and volunteers, the New Member Meeting includes an introduction to the club and program.
· Gilda's Club is a place for the entire community. A collaborative effort across the Kansas City medical community, Gilda's Club strives to work with community organizations and leverage resources.
· Gilda's Club is designed for the whole family, not just for the person living with cancer. Gilda's Club offers something for everyone.
· Gilda's Club is for men affected by cancer, offering a wide variety of activities geared just for men - rare in Kansas City.
· Gilda's Club is for teens and children affected by cancer, offering numerous teen and child-focused activities - rare in Kansas City.
· Gilda's Club is for women affected by cancer too, offering a wide variety of activities. In fact, Gilda's Club is named for Gilda Radner, celebrated comedian who had ovarian cancer.
· Gilda's Club provides a welcoming social component - just come and be who you are.
· Gilda's Club is a global brand, providing a proven and successful program structure throughout North America.
· Gilda's Club is open and available six days a week, all year long, for members who need something readily available.
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The Program
Like all Gilda’s Clubs, the Gilda’s Club Kansas City program will include the following components:
Support and Networking Groups
Support and networking groups include Weekly Wellness Groups for those living with cancer, Family Groups for family members and friends, and monthly Networking Groups that focus on a particular kind of cancer or topic of common interest.
Lectures and Workshops
These activities provide opportunities for acquiring new skills, tools, information and techniques to learn how to live with cancer. Typical lecture topics include stress reduction, nutrition, talking to your children about cancer, and managing pain. Major workshop areas include art, meditation, exercise and yoga, and cooking.
Social Activities
Among the most popular offerings at Gilda's Clubs, social activities vary from potluck suppers with music and karaoke nights, to joke fests and comedy nights, to major celebrations around special holidays. Members and families who gather for fun create bonds that enhance other individual and group experiences.
Team Convene
Facilitated by a staff member, these two-hour sessions are requested by a person with cancer or a family member to create an active support network at the time of diagnosis and for any challenging situation that may follow (e.g., a hospital stay or home recuperation). Sessions include all significant friends and family members, who join together to provide support for transportation, food preparation, childcare, etc.
Family Focus
The Family Focus meeting, which includes all individuals whom a member defines as family, is designed to enlist the entire family as a resource and help them learn together how to live with cancer. Facilitated by a staff member, the meeting also seeks to identify and discuss family beliefs about cancer, critical family issues, and immediate practical problems as well as solutions.
Noogieland
Noogieland is a part of the Gilda's Club program designated for children and families living with cancer. Each clubhouse has a special area where children meet. Most Gilda's Clubs also have several kinds of activities for teens.
ph&d for Cancer Survivors
The goal of ph&d, a word play on PhD, is to address the often-neglected social and emotional needs of cancer survivors, and their families and friends. This well-defined program of education and support activities specifically assists cancer survivors in achieving perspective, integrating and gaining information about their life post-treatment. Unique and innovative, this program also provides social and emotional support for those whose loved ones have died of cancer.
How it is done at Gilda’s Club: Professional Staff + Volunteers + Passion + Worldwide Support
The organization that manages the Gilda’s Club brand and the development of all Gilda’s Clubs is called Gilda’s Club Worldwide. Each local clubhouse is called an affiliate. It’s a tremendous business model where the sum of the parts is greater than the whole, in that each affiliate benefits from the working knowledge of the clubhouses opened before them. Gilda’s Club Worldwide works very hard to ensure that all clubhouses benefit from best practices, and that resources and information are shared constantly. The relationship between Gilda's Club Worldwide and its affiliates is close but flexible. Gilda's Club Worldwide is dedicated to maintaining the standards that scrupulously reflect the philosophy and program fundamentals and vigorously supports these standards. Worldwide believes the Gilda's Club movement is enlivened by input from the personal and collective wisdom of its affiliates.
· Money that is raised locally, stays locally
· Affiliate staff training is typically provided at the Gilda's Club Worldwide Training Center, however, additional training is being offered by Dallas, Nashville and other more established club locations
· Gilda's Club Worldwide hosts an annual Affiliates Conferences for networking and education
Every Gilda's Club employs top-notch professional and support staff for key positions. In addition to these staff, Gilda's Club relies on our care of volunteers to deliver many parts of our program. Most Gilda's Clubs have the following volunteer positions:
· New Member Meeting volunteers share their stories and impart information about the Gilda's Club program to prospective members
· Social Event volunteers help with potluck suppers, comedy nights and joke fests and serve as greeters and hosts to members attending for the first time
· Clerical volunteers help with mailings, phone calls and general administrative tasks
· A Customized Membership Plan (a one-hour dialogue to plan a member's use of the Gilda's Club Program) is developed by a certified and licensed professional staff member on a regular basis.
· Calendar volunteers conduct workshops or give lectures in their fields of specialty, such as meditation, tai chi, cooking and ceramics. Some professional volunteers donate their time during social events by providing comedy, music and dance.
· There is a trained staff that handles all activities for the Noogieland children’s program
· Any Noogieland volunteer is carefully screened and trained
· Development volunteers assist in grant writing, special events, clerical, and administrative tasks
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