Upcoming Volunteer Opportunities
- Relay For Life is an opportunity for communities and families to come together to celebrate and remember loved ones who have faced cancer. It is also an opportunity to fight back against this disease. We need volunteers to help conduct our popular Picture a Cure activity, recruit new ACS CAN members, and host legislators who are attending Relay to learn more about our life-saving mission. Please contact Barbara Wade, Program Specialist, at 432-9141 if you are interested in volunteering at a Relay For Life near you!
- During August ACS CAN volunteers meet with our Members of Congress to deliver Picture a Cure forms collected during the Relay season and to discuss upcoming legislative priorities. If you are interested in participating in an August Recess visit please contact Leinaala Ley, Government Relations Director, at 432-9149 for further information.
- For Advocacy Chairs: Tent Card and WE CAN document.
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Advocacy volunteers at Central Oahu Relay For Life. ACS CAN STate Lead Ambassador Jenny Hausler (L) and Carol Adams (R) |
May Legislative Update
The mission of the Hawaii Breast and Cervical Cancer Control Program (BCCCP) is to provides free breast and cervical cancer screenings to uninsured and underinsured women ages 50-64 who qualify as low-income. The Hawaii BCCCP is funded nationally through the Centers for Disease Control and screens over 1,000 local women each year. Since the program's inception in 1997, this community safety net program has diagnosed over 200 cancers, helping women to detect and treat cancer before it's too late.
This Legislative Session, the Society championed SB 3185, a bill to allocate $150,000 to the Hawaii Breast and Cervical Cancer Control Program and support ongoing program services to our community. Thanks to bill sponsor Senator Rosalyn Baker and the support of advocates like you, SB 3185 was signed into law on May May 1, 2008. For the first time ever, Hawaii will join forty other states across the nation that provide state funding to support this life-saving program. Thank you to everyone involved in this campaign!
Lobby Day 2008 Highlights Relay For Life and the Society's 60th Anniversary in Hawaii
For the first time ever, lobby day 2008 was co-hosted with 2015 Academy, an ACS initiative to cultivate and train volunteers to conduct culturally appropriate health outreach to members of the Native Hawaiian, Filipino and Latino communities. Lobby day volunteers asked legislators to support SB 3185 and to sign the State Cancer Promise, a blueprint for fighting cancer in our state. We were lucky to have more than fifty passionate volunteers participate in lobby day including cancer survivors, caregivers, breast cancer advocates and local Relay For Life supporters. Thank you to our wonderful volunteers for making lobby day a success!
Lobby Day volunteers also had an opportunity to watch our legislature at work. The House and Senate each presented the Society with a certificate in recognition of our sixty years of service in Hawaii in a special floor ceremony with staff and volunteers. Legislators also took this opportunity to recognize cancer survivors in the gallery, as well as loved ones lost to the disease including longtime ACS volunteer and Government Relations leader Frank Chong who passed away on March 9th. We at the Society and many of our colleagues across the State miss Frank's kindness, generosity and leadership.
Throughout lobby day, legislators were invited to participate in the Societys signature event, Relay For Life. Each legislator received a purple flashlight and a folder of information highlighting the impact that Relay For Life makes in the fight against cancer. Lunchtime speakers, including two high school students from Honokaa, spoke to ‘why they relay’. Hero of Hope Flo Pell led volunteers and legislators through a Relay ‘Fight Back Ceremony’ and longtime volunteers Angella Brandt and Ann Jones spoke to the importance of Relay in their own communities. Thank you again to our many supporters!
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