SPRINGDALE -- Erin Rongers understands what cancer patients need.
At the age of 17, she was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma and spent nine months in treatment at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, which was near her childhood home. She was among the more fortunate 90 percent of people who have the disease -- where if it's treated once, it rarely returns. Her husband, however, is among the 10 percent of Hodgkin's lymphoma patients who see it recur.
Rongers draws on her battle with cancer as executive director of The Cancer Challenge, an organization that raises money on behalf of regional cancer support service providers, like Hope Cancer Resources, Community Clinic of Northwest Arkansas and the Washington Regional Cancer Support Home.
Each year, the board of directors for The Cancer Challenge carefully considers a number of applicants who provide financial, emotional and mental support to cancer patients, as well education in cancer prevention and support and counseling for survivors. They assess the operations of these cancer-related nonprofits and select three to distribute the funds raised by The Cancer Challenge events to help them provide the services to more people in the area.
"We're normal people," Rongers said. "But ... this takes so much of you, not just financially but emotionally and mentally and everything else. So all these support services are so important for this journey that people are going through that our grantees provide."
Having a designated fundraising team handle the financial source and event planning means that the organizations they support have more time to focus on providing care to patients.
"My favorite part of this is going to take that money we worked so hard to raise and being able to write checks and give it to these organizations to do the real work," Rongers said. "We're raising the support, getting the community behind us, but they're doing the direct service. We're making that possible."
In the 21 years of effort by The Cancer Challenge, they have raised $10 million for use by 300,000 cancer patients locally.
Some of that money goes to alleviate the big financial strain for cancer patients and their families, who are often left with expenses many times over their normal budget for treatments and must still pay the mortgage despite missed days of work, or those who are unable to pay an insurance deductible before tests or treatment.
Rongers and her family have been there, and The Cancer Challenge helped them out of that place in their lives.
"My husband's had to do a lot of travel for his treatment because he's been doing clinical trials," she said. "He goes back and forth to the Mayo Clinic, so Hope Resources has helped us with gas cards and things like that when you travel.
"Gas is expensive and he's going every two weeks. We personally benefited from that service."
Since a few types of cancer are preventable, The Cancer Challenge wants to do everything in its power to provide education and better cancer prevention. It works through the Community Clinic to educate others on the effects of tobacco use, which can lead to lung, oral and esophageal cancer.
"A lot of [types of cancer] are so preventable," Rongers said. "We're putting the focus on that, on those at least we know what causes them so we can really get behind the root factors and help prevent those."
Of course not all cancer is preventable, and a diagnosis can bring myriad emotions that are hard to sort through in all the chaos. That makes counseling, bereavement support and help navigating through the process of dealing with cancer a must.
"There's no explanation for what causes certain types of cancer, but they happen," she said. "I think the work that we do here and specifically the work our grantees do is that they make the journey easier for people."
In a region that recently hit the 500,000 population mark and doesn't seem to be slowing down, Rongers said that the number of cancer patients is likely to rise, making this year's Cancer Challenge events more crucial than ever. They'll take place in Bella Vista June 19-21, with a tennis tournament, trap shoot practice, golf tournaments, walking and running 5Ks as well as a variety of socials. For more information on these events, see cancerchallenge.com or call (479) 273-3172.
Rongers said the funds generated by the activities help cancer patients and their families lead better lives.
"It's because of organizations like these that we've been able to lead a relatively normal life," she said. "We've had children, we've done all these things ... [cancer's] just part of our lives, it's not going to control our lives."
NW Profiles on 06/08/2014