Makayla Evans cheers for Wilkes-Barre Area where she’s a sophomore.
During practice, she shouted with her teammates, “F-I-G-H-T fight for a cure. What we gonna do tonight? F-I-G-H-T fight for a cure."
She and her teammates raised money with Wilkes-Barre Area’s football team for the Luzerne County-based Cancer Wellness Center of NEPA in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a cause that’s personal.
“My aunt and my grandma both had [breast cancer] at the same time,” Evans, 15, said. “It's just like me showing them and to the people who all had it, I care and I want to take what I have and show them support of what they went through.”
Evans’ mother Nicole is a member of the Wolfpack Girls’ Varsity Booster Club. She feels pride seeing her daughter help raise money for a cause that hits so close to home.
“Having these girls know what it's about, they could spread the word to their families, mom, grandma, you should go get a mammogram,” she said. “You should go check because my sister found a lump.”
Evans’ family members are now in remission. She credits the Wellness Center with helping her family get healthy.
“My mom, she waitressed her whole life, and she doesn't have much,” Nicole Evans said. “She got to go to the Wellness Center. They helped her out tremendously. My sister ... they made her a wig because she was very, very, very self conscious of herself. [They] give back to people who cannot financially go through this because they're going to chemo appointments and they can't work because they're sick all the time.”
Getting student athletes involved in the community
Wilkes-Barre Area’s cheer and football teams raised money leading up to the Oct. 10 annual “pink-out game” by selling shirts and accepting donations. All proceeds went to the Cancer Wellness Center.
The Wilkes-Barre Area Wolfpack won big Oct. 10 with a 49-0 victory against Wyoming Valley West.
But the Cancer Wellness Center of NEPA also won that night, with a check presented to the organization by the cheer and football teams. The teams' goal for the fundraiser was $1,500. In the end, they raised $1,795 for the Wellness Center.
Cheer coach Jackie Rocha wants her team to focus on more than just their sport.
“We preach to them about cheerleading being important, but they're not just athletes,” Rocha said. “They’re student athletes. So being involved in not only the cheering aspect, but also involved in the community.”
Coach Skye Rachko was happy to see her team’s enthusiasm through the fundraiser.
“They're teenage girls. They love the color of pink and anything to help out their community. They just like to be super involved with anything that they can,” Rachko said.
“It's just really nice to see them trying for something other than shaking palms and bows,” she added.
Students looked forward to the pink-out game.
“It's very important to show our support, because there's many people watching us every Friday night,” said 17-year-old junior and cheer team member Diana Abreu. “We never know what anyone is going through, and it's just important to show our support to everyone who might be going through it, or knows anyone who's going through breast cancer or any type of cancer.”
The Cancer Wellness Center often works with high schools and sports teams. Its director Tom Ruskey went to a Wilkes-Barre cheer practice to thank the team and explain the importance of the fundraiser.
“I love to see people who are involved in these sports teams, who come together when one of their members gets ill, whether it be cancer or anything else,” he said. “Just to educate them a little bit more on what someone goes through and how they can help support that person is really important.”
The Cancer Wellness Center of NEPA
The Cancer Wellness Center of NEPA, headquartered in Forty Fort, serves about 600 clients. They’ve grown significantly in the past few years. The Center focuses on wellness for clients as they navigate cancer diagnoses.
“What we want to do is relieve the stress and tension of a cancer journey,” Ruskey said. “Part of our facility is literally like a spa for people with cancer. We offer all sorts of things, like massage, reflexology, facials. Another part of our facility is a full service gym. We support people in fitness with personal training and yoga classes, other sorts of strength classes. We offer free wigs to women who lose their hair during chemotherapy treatment. We're also expanding our nutritional, art and music therapy programs this year. We do an awful lot, and all those funds go to support those programs.”
All of the Center’s services are free for clients and up to three family members or friends. The organization uses Breast Cancer Awareness Month to spread awareness and raise money.
“About 40% of our clients are breast cancer patients,” Ruskey said. All of our services are absolutely free to cancer patients and their families. Everything that we offer, though, is very costly, so we really rely on fundraisers like this to help support us and continue to offer these services.”
Supporting others with breast cancer
Melissa Ostroskie, a program manager at the Wellness Center, is a breast cancer survivor. She came to the Wellness Center as a client when she was in treatment.
“Being on the cancer journey, it does affect a multitude of things, and mentally, it greatly affects that being you're not who you were before, the changes that you're going through, how you're feeling coming here to the Cancer Wellness Center kind of lets you know and realize that you're not alone in that journey, and what you're feeling is normal, and you're surrounded by others who truly understand which is really important on the journey,” Ostroskie said.
She relates to clients.
“For me, it's very rewarding. I'm able to tell them firsthand what they may expect, or how they may feel, or what they may go through,” she said. “Being able to do that for the clients allows them to go on their own journey with a little more information to help them go through it a little easier.”
Ostroskie loves to see clients leave with a smile on their face.
“We see that progression, and for us, I think it's truly amazing and more aware to us in the community that it's truly needed,” she said.
