New campaign to provide retreats for women recovering from breast cancer launched

While most nonprofit organizations are doing their best to simply survive the bad economy, one organization is launching a bold new campaign to provide two-and-a-half day retreats in all 50 states for women recovering from breast cancer.

“We need to do everything we can to close the gap for women who need our support”

Casting for Recovery, which currently hosts retreats in 27 states, will use funds provided by The Hartford Financial Services Group to add retreats in all of the 23 states it does not already serve, beginning with Florida, South Carolina, and New Mexico, where demand is acute.

Lori Simon, Casting for Recovery’s executive director, says the organization has served more than 4,000 women since it was founded in 1996, but with more than 500 women being diagnosed with breast cancer every day, scores of women must be turned away from its retreats.

“We need to do everything we can to close the gap for women who need our support,” Simon said. “Time and time again women tell us our retreats are the first good thing to happen to them since they were diagnosed. After enduring the devastating effects of breast cancer surgery and chemotherapy, women need a way forward. They, and their loved ones, need hope and support. That’s where we come in and why “To Fish is to Hope” is our motto.”

The Hartford has been the organization’s lead sponsor since 2006. Connie Weaver, the company’s senior vice president of marketing and communications, says of the relationship: “You need only hear one woman’s story of how her life was changed by attending a retreat to know why we decided to become the organization’s leading national supporter three years ago. It is a privilege to be a part of a process that enables a woman to move forward after breast cancer surgery and to continue the process of renewal.”

Casting for Recovery was started by a breast surgeon who loved fly fishing and who recognized both the physical and emotional benefits the sport and its natural setting can provide to women in recovery. The retreats combine fly-fishing instruction and catch-and-release fishing with counseling and education to promote the healing process. The two-and-a-half day retreats are provided at no cost to participants.

Simon says her organization’s goal is to offer retreats to women in all 50 states by 2015. To reach its goal, Casting for Recovery, which currently has more than 1,000 volunteers, will have to recruit a small army of new volunteers on the ground. But Simon is not worried about growing the ranks of new volunteers because, as she put it, “Breast cancer touches just about every family in America. So when the call goes out for volunteers, people from all walks of life step up.”

The Hartford, which is celebrating its bicentennial in 2010, is also the founding sponsor of U.S. Paralympics, a nonprofit organization dedicated to recruiting and training elite athletes with physical disabilities. Weaver says all three organizations share what she calls an abilities philosophy, which encourages people with illnesses and physical disabilities to use their abilities to overcome life’s challenges.