Gilda’s Club Kentuckiana provides Support for cancer patients and their families
By Jennifer Wimmer
Gilda’s Club Kentuckiana is an affiliate of the Cancer Support Community (CSC), and is a non-profit organization for people with cancer, as well as for their family and friends. It is named in memory of one of the most beloved comediennes of all time, and an original cast member of Saturday Night Live, the late Gilda Radner.
Gilda was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1986, and believed in the important correlation between emotional and physical well-being. Her dream was to develop communities where no one would ever have to face cancer alone. She, sadly, lost her battle with ovarian cancer in 1989, and her husband, the late actor Gene Wilder, along with Gilda’s psychotherapist during her cancer treatment, Joanna Bull, and broadcaster Joel Siegel, with the help of family and friends, founded the first Gilda’s Club in New York City, in 1995.
Gilda’s Club local chapters, like the Gilda’s Club Kentuckiana locations, provide meeting places for those with cancer, their families, and friends to join together in homelike settings, and build emotional and social support that supplement medical care. They also offer support and networking groups, lectures, workshops and social events.
The organization’s name came from Gilda’s book, “It’s Always Something”. She wrote in her book that cancer gives, “membership to an elite club I’d rather not belong to.” She always sought to provide some comic relief to others, even when faced with her own diagnosis of cancer.
In 2009, Gilda’s Club Worldwide merged with The Wellness Community, another established cancer support organization, to create the CSC. Gilda’s Club serves communities across the U.S. and Canada, in locations such as Chicago, New York City, Detroit, South Florida, St. Louis, and New Albany, with the closest to Hancock County, just an hour and a half away, in Louisville, KY.
Gilda’s Club in Louisville is having their biggest fundraising event of the year, “Gilda’s Night”, next month, and tickets are already sold-out. They do about 190 different program offerings every month, and at three different locations in Louisville. These programs are designed for families living with cancer – for the patient and the whole family.
“The kind of symptoms we treat,” Gilda’s Club Kentuckiana President/CEO Karen Morrison, CFRE, said, “they’re: isolation, anxiety, stress. Those symptoms affect everyone in the family. Those are symptoms that chemo and radiation don’t help for the patient, and everybody in the family experiences them when a cancer diagnosis comes into the home. We’re a support community, where people come together, families come together, who are living with cancer and support each other, and we facilitate that process through those 190+ different program offerings.”
There are 4 Gilda’s Club Kentuckiana sites, as well as a virtual program so people can join from anywhere, virtually. Many of the programs offered are hybrid, and there a few that are virtual-only.
Morrison continued, “We do deliveries as well, and mail-ins throughout the state of Kentucky, and Southern Indiana. We also have a financial assistance program, and individual counseling. You don’t have to live in the Louisville area to avail yourself of those services. We have people who use those services from all over Kentucky. We served people in more than 50 KY counties, and 8 Indiana counties last year.”
At Gilda’s Club Kentuckiana, they have the largest cancer support community in the world!
“We need to have the biggest and the best,” she said. “We (KY) are the cancer capital of the U.S., unfortunately, and Indiana is not too far behind. The best way to get engaged is to go to the website (www.gck.org), or give us a call. People can join online. There is a form that you can fill-out, and it’s HIPAA compliant.”
Once you’re signed-up, one of the staff’s mental health professionals will call you the next day, and help you get involved. Core to the support programs offered are the support groups. They offer support groups for families currently living with cancer, and alternate between bereavement groups and survivorship groups.
“We have some support groups that meet that are site-specific,” she added. “We have 2 sites in Indiana and one in West Louisville. Basically, the largest number of support groups we have are for men, women, and children, who are living with any type of cancer. Then, we have survivorship groups, bereavement groups, and site-specific groups, like a breast cancer networking group or people who are living with metastatic cancer, various specific groups that kind of come and go, based on our population.”
They have a wide variety of exercise programs such as yoga, tai chi, qigong, Pilates, Zumba, and all different kinds of adaptive exercise classes for anyone to join. Those classes are offered mostly in-person, but some are offered virtually as well.
“We have art, music, meditation, education, and then purely social events – dinners and themed parties,” she said. “We had “Ride on the Belle of Louisville” last weekend. A few hundred people came out and took a cruise on the Belle of Louisville. We do a Thanksgiving dinner and party, a holiday party, a Mardi Gras party, a Derby party, and we do a kid’s camp. We sometimes do lock-ins.”
Noogiefest 2024
They have a huge event coming up on Saturday, October 26th called “Noogiefest”, from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. It is a Halloween themed children’s event, and open to everyone. This fun event features free food, music, treats, games, crafts and more, and is held at Gilda’s Main Clubhouse in Louisville, located at 2440 Grinstead Drive. Call (502) 583-0075 to RSVP, or register at https://gcl.gnosishosting.net/Events/Info/Noogiefest-15736.
Calendar
Check out the Events Calendar at: https://gcl.gnosishosting.net/Events/Calendar, to see the full list of offerings for each month.
“We try to plan that out 3 months ahead,” Morrison said. “You’ll see some pretty creative, fun programming. We do a lot of our big family events at the farm, which is in Jeffersonville. Our biggest indoor space is at the Grinstead Drive office. We have line dancing at Gilda’s West, Bingo, just so many different things. If you look through our calendar, you’ll be impressed. We like to say, ‘It’s something for every body’.”
Morrison has been involved with GCK for almost 18 years now, and said that shutting yourself off from socializing, and isolating while dealing with this very tough challenge doesn’t help you physically or mentally.
“They build a community here,” she said, “but it extends beyond the walls of Gilda’s Club. They support each other over the phone, visit each other in the hospital, and take each other things. There’s always somebody 3 months behind you and 3 months ahead of you, so you’re getting that support and encouragement, and you’re also giving it. I think that is really critical to what makes Gilda’s Club so successful. Here, everybody is living with cancer, so it’s normal, and you’re not alone. And, you go from feeling like, maybe, a victim to someone who realizes you have expertise at living with cancer and can share that and help others through this journey.”
Gilda’s Club Louisville was founded by 6 Louisville cancer survivors, and opened its signature red doors, intended to symbolize Gilda Radner’s unique vibrancy, in 2007. It was the first cancer support community of its kind in the area. The unique GCK mission is: Uplifting and strengthening people impacted by cancer by providing support, fostering compassionate communities, and breaking down barriers to care.
“Laughter is a big part of what we do,” Morrison said. “We always say that living with cancer is not a choice anyone would make, but how you live with it is your choice. So, living your life fully while cancer is a part of it, and living with joy, purpose, meaning, and laughter, is really what we’re all about. A lot of times, I think, when a cancer diagnosis comes into someone’s life, they hit the giant pause button, and say, ‘My life needs to stop while I go over here and fight this cancer.’ When, in reality, it’s really important to continue living your life as fully as you can while cancer is a part of it. If you do that, there’s solid data that shows that if you’re taking care of your mental health/psychosocial health, then your health outcomes are going to be better. Gilda said, ‘Cancer is the most unfunny thing I’ve ever experienced, but laughter sometimes beats the alternative.’ She felt like no one should face cancer alone, and that’s really why Gilda’s Club got started, following her death.”
She added, “We do have folks who drive every week from Elizabethtown. We have some folks who carpool. The Breckinridge Health Hospital has opened an infusion center, and we hope to offer support through them in the future. We are trying to do more toward E-town, Radcliff, that area. We’re working with Flaget Memorial Hospital, in Bardstown. One hundred percent of what we offer is free. It’s a pure philanthropic model, supported by generous folks in the community.”
Gilda’s Club is both a place to safely share and explore your cancer journey, and a place to escape it, Morrison said.
“You don’t have to talk about cancer when you come here. You can be your full self, without being that person who has cancer, or whose wife or child or mother has cancer,” she said. “It’s very freeing in that way. Even folks who are living with terminal disease here are not alone at all…When cancer happens to you, you feel very alone, and isolated. When you join a community like Gilda’s Club you realize community is stronger than cancer, and that you’re not only not alone, but that there is this huge vibrant community that you can be a part of, and can provide support to others through it, and can receive support from others through it. It’s very powerful. People talk about cancer as a battle – a battle between the patient and the cancer. I think it’s more about a battle within yourself to continue living your life fully while cancer is a part of it.”
Learn More
To learn more about Gilda’s Club Kentuckiana, please visit the website at: https://www.gck.org/about/. Like and follow the Gilda’s Club Kentuckiana Facebook Page for updates. For more information on how to donate or volunteer, please go to: http://www.gck.org/contact-us/.
Contact Information
Gilda’s Club Kentuckiana locations and phone numbers: The GCK office at 2440 Grinstead Drive, in Louisville, can be reached at (502) 583-0075. GCK at 1720 West Broadway, Suite 205, in Louisville can be reached at (502) 371-3040. The Indiana locations are in Clark County and Floyd County. There is a GCK office at 1218 E. Oak St. in New Albany, IN, and at 5318 King Rd., in Jeffersonville, IN.
