become a cancare volunteer
share your wisdom
CanCare exists to match newly diagnosed cancer patients and their caregivers with our trained volunteers who have faced the same type of cancer, gone through treatment and are now “on the other side.”
As a CanCare Volunteer, you provide a very rare perspective to your clients. You have already been through the cancer journey. That alone provides a very powerful gift to your clients. You provide strength and hope just by your being present with them as they travel their own journey.
We cannot control the outcome of our client’s or their loved one’s medical treatment, but we can ease his/her anxieties and fears along the way. What a privilege it is to be someone’s confidante on such an intimate journey!
The requirements to become a CanCare Volunteer are to attend both days of a training weekend, the cost of which is $25. Three local leaders facilitate two training weekends each year: one in the spring and one in the late fall. Sessions run Saturday from 8:45 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and Sunday afternoon from 1:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Each training class is made up of 9-20 other cancer survivors and caregivers of all different types of cancer. Through varied lessons and activities, volunteers reflect on their own cancer experiences, share observations and eventually undertake several role play activities before graduating. Each volunteer is then entered into the national database and contacted when they have been matched with a client. A volunteer always has the freedom to accept or decline a new client and may accept only as many clients as they desire. The commitment of a volunteer is to contact his/her client once a week per the client’s preference (phone, text, email) and to be willing to do so for up to a year in some cases.
The “work” is rewarding and most volunteers feel their time has been well spent.
CanCare Volunteer Pledge
As CanCare volunteers,
we give meaning to the word hope.
Our stories are our testimony
of hope’s power over cancer.
We offer encouragement
in the face of the unknown,
support for the journey ahead,
and a shared empathy
that comes from experience.
We listen with our hearts
and comfort with our words.
We share what we have learned
and we learn from what we share.
But what we offer most
is the choice to live.
We are CanCare Volunteers.
VOLUNTEER SPOTLIGHT
We have some of the most amazing volunteers. We honor and respect how each of them is sharing their strength to support others who are living with cancer.