WASHINGTON, June 14, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Cancer Support Community (CSC) is joining its network partners including CSC, Gilda’s Clubs, and healthcare partners, to celebrate the second annual Community Is Stronger Than Cancer Day. Following the success of the previous year’s celebration, CSC and its network are excited to announce that they are continuing the tradition. The event is a day of awareness to promote the support, resources, and services that the compassionate community provides to cancer patients, survivors, caregivers, and loved ones.  

The celebration takes place each year on June 28th, a date that coincides with the birthday of one of the great comic geniuses of the 20th century and legacies of the Cancer Support Community: beloved Saturday Night Live star Gilda Radner who died of ovarian cancer. It was Gilda Radner’s experience at The Wellness Community in Santa Monica, California that inspired the creation of Gilda’s Club. The Cancer Support Community was formed in 2009 when Gilda’s Club and The Wellness Community merged.   
  
CSC’s 190 partner locations in the United States and beyond make up a network where cancer patients, survivors, caregivers, and loved one’s access free emotional support, healthy lifestyle activities, social connection, education, and navigation and referral services provided with compassion and expertise—in person or online. The network has served the community with over 300,000 visits in 2022.  
  
“My partner Angella and I not only attend many of the classes at CSC Greater Lehigh Valley, but we became top volunteers. CSC helped me to get back on my feet and gave me my life back,” said Lynne, who was diagnosed with papillary breast cancer. 
  
In addition to having support in their local community, participants are presented with opportunities to join forces with other impacted people to advocate on issues important to cancer patients at the state and national levels and to contribute to important research that inspires positive change in cancer care and the patient experience.  

“We want to make sure every person impacted by cancer knows that CSC and our network partners are here to help them cope with a diagnosis and its aftermath,” said CSC CEO Debbie Weir. “Every day, our 190 locations offer inspiration, connection, support and more to thousands of people. And I’m proud to say that our online communities are as vibrant and compassionate as our physical ones. Whatever people’s preferences or level of comfort, or whether they live in a city, in the suburbs or in a rural area, our community is ready to welcome them. We are grateful to everyone joining us on June 28th in showing that community is stronger than cancer.” 

CSC and its network partners are asking its supporters to help them raise awareness of the services available to impacted people by sharing its social media posts using the hashtags #CelebrateCSCGC #CommunityIsStrongerThanCancer. 

About the Cancer Support Community  
As the largest professionally led nonprofit network of cancer support worldwide, the Cancer Support Community (CSC), including its Gilda’s Club network partners, is dedicated to ensuring that all people impacted by cancer are empowered by knowledge, strengthened by action, and sustained by community. CSC achieves its mission through three areas: direct service delivery, research, and advocacy. The organization’s Institute for Excellence in Psychosocial Care includes an international network that offers the highest quality social and emotional support for people impacted by cancer, as well as a community of support available online and over the phone. The Research and Training Institute conducts cutting-edge psychosocial, behavioral, and survivorship research. CSC furthers its focus on patient advocacy through its Cancer Policy Institute, informing public policy in Washington, D.C. and across the nation. For more information, please call the toll-free Cancer Support Helpline at 888-793-9355 or visit www.CancerSupportCommunity.org. 

Nathalie Casthely
Cancer Support Community
917-572-4517
communications@cancersupportcommunity.org