What an amazing success! Thank you to the wonderful community who helped us raise well over our $1000 goal for the Gilda’s Club of South Jersey!
On August 28th, we had a VIRTUAL FUNDRAISER for the Gilda’s Club of South Jersey. It was a long journey to get there! We had an original plan of a live, in-person event at the gorgeous Bellview Winery in Landisville, NJ, on March 28th. These plans were promptly finished off by COVID-related concerns, as have so many other events. We re-scheduled the live event for June 2020- “when things have settled down”….Ok, when you have finished your raucous laughter, you can continue reading….Yes, I’ll wait!
When it was becoming heart-sinkingly clear than nothing was going to be settled down- or even approximating normal by June, we decided to pivot completely. We would attempt something completely outside our usual comfort zone- a Virtual Fundraiser. The original fundraiser was set to include wine tastings, food trucks, live presentations, a bake sale, and a raffle. With a virtual event, we would have to pare a lot of these back… or change them entirely!
However, we still had a huge outpouring from local businesses who had donated items to our gift basket raffle. Maybe an online raffle instead, converting people’s tickets into raffle tickets, a live stream where we could still talk about Gilda’s Club, and showcase some of the prizes…could still be a success?
But first- what is Gilda’s Club, anyway?!
The Gilda’s Club of South Jersey is a community based organisation in Atlantic County, New Jersey. The mission of the Gilda’s Club is to ensure that all people impacted by cancer are empowered by knowledge, strengthened by action, and sustained by community. Gilda’s Club provides a free, comprehensive program of psychosocial support to adults, teens and children impacted by cancer.
The Gilda’s Club of South Jersey wants to reach as many people who need their help as possible! Part of this is extending the reach of the Club further into South New Jersey.
And this is where we came in!
ARC Seminars is run by therapists, and we know ALL TOO WELL the lack of community and health awareness resources. It’s been part of our mission from day 1 to help our communities wherever possible, with the skills and education that we also bring to clinicians!
When we added Cancer Care: A Collaborative Approach, a short live/online course about the therapy and care approaches for people with cancer, to our directory at the beginning of 2020, we knew that we wanted to give back to the Cancer Care community. Raising money was important. These organisations run on such a tight budget, that raising money is key- but we also wanted to raise awareness. We’ve such a great, varied network of healthcare clinicians in our network, on social media and in our mailing list. Why not bring their attention to the efforts and the services provided by the Gilda’s Club, in order to maybe help them point people who would benefit in their direction?
The virtual Gilda’s Club fundraiser!
On August 28th, we threw our virtual fundraiser! Ruth, Allison and myself hosted a live stream, showcasing as much of the event as we could! We discussed Gilda’s Club and its mission, busted some commonly held myths about Cancer Rehab, talked about the programs that our main sponsor, Inspira, have running for cancer rehab in the community. We were able to display the baskets for the raffle and held an online raffle to raise the funds. A busy night!
Overall, the Gilda’s Club fundraiser- despite all the chopping and changing- was a great success. We raised $1383 from the raffle alone, and had almost 100 supporters- which blew us away. Gilda’s Club was incredibly grateful for the effort, and we were ale to achieve both our monetary AND our awareness goal!
So what next for ARC’s community collaborations?
We have big plans for our future commun collabs! We will be working with the Brain Injury Association of America in the coming year to draw awareness to their cause- and hope also to be working with the American Heart Organisation, and National Lymphedema Network over the course of 2021! Stay tuned for more ARC community based events, and keep the love and support flowing ??
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2020: New Year’s Book-solutions!
Hello, world! It is that most wonderful time of the year again…January…the time of year where we are either all aspirationally reinventing ourselves, or feeling slightly bad that we haven’t.
I am definitely guilty of falling into this trap. I love writing resolutions! I write them every year- I sometimes even go as far as writing the resolutions on post its and sticking them on my mirror (‘cos that’s a fool-proof strategy, right?!). But as we all know by now, New Year’s Resolutions are notoriously left behind once the second or third week of January rolls around, and you can be left feeling a little ‘lesser-than’ when by the time the following year rolls around and I’m not the piano-playing, Chinese-speaking, 110lb polymath that I had anticipated being that previous January!! Or (worse, in my opinion), you stop setting goals or resolutions for yourself, just assuming that you are just setting yourself up for failure. But we shouldn’t stop trying to be better versions of ourselves, right??
This year, I have been, as usual, scribbling down my goals and what I want to achieve this year. And as usual, it is pretty out there! The other yearly list I make, and this I add to all year long, is my Books-I-Want-To-Inhale-As-Fast-As-I-Possibly-Can list! And this year’s list, so far, really reflects my aspirational mindset. There are a lot of books on this list that show where my head is at this year- basically, I want to SORT MY LIFE OUT! I have two babies under two, trying to run a company with my two partners, keep my household ticking over, travel home to Ireland for weddings/christenings/etc, and many more life stressors- I need as much help from these awesome books as I can get!
I want to share them here and would love to hear your feedback- have you read them, are they on your to-read list, or do you have any others that I should be adding to mine?
- Best Year Ever: Michael Hyatt This book focuses entirely on examining the way you set goals and meet them in order to make the most out of your time. Hyatt says: a goal is not about what you accomplish, it is about who you become”. This book, and the accompanying Planner, were gifted to me by my good friend Ruth (Hey Ruth!), who clearly knows what makes me tick! I’m several chapters in, and super inspired so far.
- The Power of Habit: Charles Duhigg This book is a deep dive look at habit- how certain habits can change absolutely everything. This is a topic that fascinates me completely. Habits can come so easy…or so hard…and harnessing a habit for good can make your life soooo much better! I love Duhigg’s writing, I read Smarter Better Faster last year and his style is really easy to read. Looking forward to this one.
- Talking to Strangers-What we should know about the people we don’t know: Malcolm Gladwell Who doesn’t love a bit of Gladwell? Again, I have read everything else he has ever written, and cannot get enough!! I got this book for Christmas too. It purports to look at why and how miscommunications can happen in circumstances where we would think that everything should be crystal clear…the jacket mentions the Bernie Madoff scandal, Amanda Knox incarceration, and Sandra Bland wrongful arrest as examples of what is to be examined….very excited to dive in!!
- Flourishing: Maureen Gaffney This is a book that I have picked up and put down several times, and I think this is the year that I am definitely going to read it fully through! It is all about flourishing as a person despite adversity, flourishing in your personal relationships, and increasing happiness; written by psychologist Maureen Gaffney. My mother swears by this book, hence its perma-presence on my shelf- this is the year, baby!!
- The 4-hour work week: Tim Ferriss I’ve read and followed some of Tim Ferris’s writings, so I am intrigued to see his ideas about streamlining my work week! Most weeks it feels like I cannot even scrounge 4 hours a week to begin with 😀 So any tips will be very well received!
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ARC Seminars at the Mid-County Senior Center Health & Resource Fair!
We had a blast meeting people, seniors, other healthcare vendors and community organizers at the Mid-County Senior Annual Health and Resource Fair, at Mid-County Senior Center, Wilmington, DE! This annual fair invites seniors and community members to come to a health and wellness focused event, find out more about issues affecting them and gather information on where and how to further their wellness and quality of life.
This year, ARC had volunteered to be a wellness resource, offering information about Chronic Edema, Screenings for those at risk, and lots of information about local resources including therapists, wellness centers, and online resources in order to empower those who are concerned about their swelling to find the tools they need.
As healthcare clinicians, we know that swelling can become chronic and lead to a host of complications, including skin conditions and breakdown, infection, lack of mobility and fall risk, and even body image and mental health implications. Too often we only see patients for their edema needs when the problem has persisted into a chronic stage. Many people are living with conditions placing them at risk for complications from edema, like diabetes, post-surgical, Peripheral Vascular Disease, and so on.
We wanted to start to reach people at a local level, to help them realize that there is something they can do about this condition, provide info and local resources, and hopefully arrest some swelling before it reaches a chronic stage! If you would like to download our brochure, to provide some information about chronic swelling to some of your patients, click here.
Many Thanks to Susan and all the great staff at Mid-County Senior Fair for putting together a wonderful event! We look forward to providing many more health and wellness focused services in the future! Check out Mid-Center’s FaceBook and Website!
