MEMBER PORTAL
Refer A Family
Check out what we’ve been doing the past year! Scroll down for a highlight reel of the time our AYA group has spent together in 2018 and early 2019. We’ve grown, we’ve been challenged and we’re better because of it!
Life Plan Group
As a group our AYA members met with our Life Plan facilitator, Dana, for three sessions. Together we deeply discussed our talents, interests, passions and gifts and how we can use them to guide our future. This discussion also helped us to identify what we care most about and what that means in our current life situations as well as our future careers, relationships and contributions to our community. We feel so blessed to have had this opportunity to get to know each other at a deeper level and feel direction and purpose for our futures!
This program was 100% funded by the Halloween Fundraiser in October 2018
Biweekly Meetups
Our AYA members continue to meet every other week for supportive, social activities. We love spending time with friends who understand our journey and help us celebrate the ups and support us in the downs of living life with disease. Below are a few examples of how we’ve spent our time together these past few months.
Together we enjoyed a little animal therapy.
We got our hands dirty creating beauty from shapeless lumps of clay.
And we expanded our artistic talent through iPad art.
Giving Back
In April, AYA donated care bags to PORT, the Pediatric Oncology Resource Team at Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital to be shared with their AYA population! These computer back packs included food gift cards, a water bottle, journal, and a few other essentials often needed in the hospital. We hope any AYA patients receiving these bags find comfort that they are not alone in this journey and their friends at AYA are rooting for them! This donation was made possible by our generous donors and the Galinski family! David Galinski was a founding member of our local AYA movement and continues to be a huge advocate for AYA.
More bags are being planned soon for other medical areas where AYA groups are treated. This is a great way for newly diagnosed individuals to get connected to AYA and to each other.
Looking Ahead
Our Spring and Summer meet ups will continue to occur bi-weekly and will include events to encourage creative expression and health through activities like origami and dancing as well as social support through game nights and outings to local sporting events and family cottages. Go to our calendar to get more details on our summer plans!
Looking Back
Kate, David and Marcy, pictured below, founded the local AYA Movement when they needed to connect with someone their age that was going through something similar. Amazing that through one simple conversation and courageous reach out, a ‘movement’ was ignited.
In the past few months our group has experienced many triumphs to celebrate and hurdles to overcome and we supported each other through it all!
1 marriage 6 birthdays 2 last days of chemo
1 engagement 2 re-birthdays 1 invasive surgery
1 angel-versary 3 cancer-versaries 1 open heart surgery anniversary
