Wellness Within

$68,111 raised by 136 donors

91% complete

$75,000 Goal

Wellness Within is a nonprofit wellness center for patients, survivors, caregivers, and families facing cancer and its aftermath. Located in downtown Roseville, our center offers a warm and inviting space for clients to relax, connect with others, and experience a sense of community. Our services are provided on a donate-if-and-what-you-can basis, ensuring that cost is barrier to no one. Our main programs include classes in Nutrition Education, Mindfulness and Meditation, Healing Movement, and Expressive Arts, all of which aim enhance an individual's ability to experience quality of life through practices that incorporate physical, emotional, and mental well-being. We also host guest speakers, offer resources through a lending library, and support and collaborate with regional cancer centers. In 2020, in response to the pandemic, we launched on-line programming to support our community during shelter-in-place restrictions. As a result, we now have a robust podcast presence, a large YouTube library, including a subset of videos translated into Spanish, and virtual Zoom classes. The result has been over 20,000 engagements with our programs and over 1,500 course hours of content provided. Additionally, we have been able to serve as a nexus of expertise in the online medium, with Doctors, Nurses, Social Workers and other experts in the complementary cancer care field located both regionally and nationally participating as guests on our podcasts. In 2022, we launched the online platform, BEACON™, a course-based system of our impactful content, efficiently organized by where a person may be in their cancer experience, such as in treatment or post-treatment, for example. BEACON™ also contains an orientation to the programming of Wellness Within, giving the background to why we do what we do, providing an introduction of the autonomic nervous system, the power of choice during the cancer experience, the impacts of mindfulness, nutrition, awareness and expression, and movement, contributing to client resilience and empowerment. All class calendars and online resources, including BEACON™, can be accessed from our website at www.wellnesswithin.org. 

Wellness Within was opened with a firestorm raging in our hearts and a greater understanding of what it takes to support someone fighting cancer. Those who have survived the dreadful ordeal know it does not end when treatment stops. Cancer invades, turns lives upside down, raises all kinds of havoc and the financial burdens can be devastating. "Life altering" can be an understatement during and after treatment. Although great strides have been made in finding more effective treatments for some cancers, its wrath is relentless, causing much disruption in the lives of our loved ones. At Wellness Within we will not find a cure or raise money to find a cure, rather, we are in the trenches with people as they navigate a diagnosis and treatment, offering tools to restore healing, manage stress, and instill hope.

"Wellness Within provides invaluable services to patients, survivors and their families coping with a cancer diagnosis. I have been impressed with the results patients have experienced from participation in their programs. I have found Wellness Within's programs to compliment patient's medical treatments. I give my full endorsement to Wellness Within and am thankful for their incredible dedication and important work." - Ernie Bodai, M.D., F.A.C.S., Director, Breast Cancer Survivorship Institute

Mission

Wellness Within's mission is to enhance the quality of life of patients, survivors, caregivers, and families affected by the trauma of cancer by providing accessible support services and education.

Needs

COVID19 required a quick adaptability of our programming into an online environment. What we quickly came to realize is how much of a need there was for our programs to be available on demand - for those people who could not make it to the center due to not feeling well; who might want to listen to a program while receiving a treatment; or who simply did not have the transportation. Now, while our online portfolio is robust and flourishing, our regional clients are telling us how much returning to in-person class modalities helps with their already taxed mental health. As a result, we are supporting an online portfolio of programming while offering our traditional instructor led offerings. To do so, we are seeking support to manage both operational portfolios as we run both modalities of programming concurrently, while also ensuring sustainability of our operations in the unpredictability of the current post-pandemic world and financial climate.

Additionally, we are growing our "foundational programs", starting our Mind-body Skills programs, Coping with a Cancer Diagnosis Series, and the What's Next? Navigating When Treatment Ends series. These series all develop the "foundational" coping skills, dealing with anxiety and stress, navigating relationships, self-care, relating to the cancer or post-cancer body, and cultivating joy and resilience, but at different points within the cancer experience and in some cases, with different focus and depth. They are all multi-class series, and we intend to provide at least three Mind-Body Skills series in 2023, and at least two-each of the Coping with Cancer and What's Next series.

While the above programs are considered "foundational", we also have "pillar" programs that help support and cultivate what clients have learned in the "foundational" programs. These "pillar" programs need continued funding. Specifically, we would like to enhance our nutrition offerings, as well as expressive arts and caregiving programming. Finally, we would like to fund another iteration of Spanish translated online resources.

We can use in-kind donations of products needed in all of our programming, available to view on our Amazon wish list: https://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/3CMMN1BBZK73#

Equity Statement

Wellness Within does not and shall not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion (creed), gender, gender expression, age, national origin (ancestry), disability, marital status, sexual orientation, or military status, in any of its activities or operations. These activities include, but are not limited to, hiring and firing of staff, selection of volunteers and vendors, provision of services, and dealings with the general public. We are committed to providing an inclusive and welcoming environment for all members of our board, staff, clients, volunteers, subcontractors, vendors, and clients.

Wellness Within is an equal opportunity employer. We will not discriminate and will take affirmative action measures to ensure against discrimination in employment, recruitment, advertisements for employment, compensation, termination, upgrading, promotions, and other conditions of employment against any employee or job applicant on the bases of race, color, gender, national origin, age, religion, creed, disability, veteran's status, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.

Organization Data

Summary

Organization name

Wellness Within

Tax id (EIN)

45-0929096

Mission Category

Health Care

Operating Budget

$250,001-$500,000

Organization Need

Funding: Program, In-Kind Donations, Other, Funding: Unrestricted

Demographics Served

General population, Women/Female-identifying

Local Counties Served

El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento, Yolo

Equity Statement

Equity Statement

Address

609 Oak Ave
Roseville, CA 95678

Service areas

Placer, CA, US

Sacramento, CA, US

Nevada, CA, US

Sutter, CA, US

Yolo, CA, US

Phone

916-788-0333

fax

916-788-0333

Social Media