Cancer Resources for Elkhart County

Mission Statement:

Cancer Resources provides assistance to our cancer patients and their families in a way that enhances their quality of life. We strive to educate Elkhart County residents in the prevention, detection and treatment of cancer.

Board Members:

Andrew Asma, Edward Jones

Mary Anne Ballard Bristol-Myers Squibb

Barry Bilger, 1st Source Bank

Brian Borger, Stifel of Elkhart

Shane Frost, Momentum Marketing

Russell Gindling, JSM Engineered Plastics

Javan Aguirre-Guido, Chinook Motor Coach

Bruce Harris, University of Notre Dame Professor

Brad Hartman, RSM

Paul Milnes, Data-Safe IT Services

Kallie Schuetz, Interra Credit Union

Darin Sorg, Sorg Jewelers

James Starkey, Elk Cty Health Dept. (Retired)

Cancer Resources for Elkhart County E-Newsletter

Sign up for Cancer Resources for Elkhart County’s E-Newsletter to stay informed about news and upcoming events. Through your continued support we are able to assist our friends in Elkhart County who have cancer with financial assistance.
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Cancer Resources’ program is working to help patients have more active role in their treatment, for the benefit of their healing and for the benefit of their lives when they reach remission.

Cancer Resources for Elkhart County History:

Cancer Resources for Elkhart County, Inc. (CR) is a private, not-for-profit agency founded in Indiana in 1958. Throughout the agency’s history, UC’s mission has been to help Elkhart County area residents in their fight against cancer.

Formerly the Cancer Society of Elkhart County, CR was originally a chapter of the American Cancer Society, as were most cancer societies of the 1940’s and 1950’s. Many societies were approved to receive funds from the United Fund (forerunner of the United Way). In the fifties, the local United Fund did not want to send money out of Elkhart County to a national center, so a faction of the Elkhart Cancer Society chose to withdraw from the American Cancer Society and incorporate as an independent agency. During the years, the two organizations have continued to cooperate with each other, but the different focus of our missions have kept us as separate entities.

The focus of CR has changed over the years. During the fifties, only 25% of cancer patients survived, so early detection was vital, and surgery was basically the only treatment option available. In the sixties, CR funded a scholarship program for students who were focusing their studies in the field of health care. In the early seventies when better treatments became available, CR began directing more resources toward patient assistance and less toward research, and the first Women’s Screening Clinic was offered. The official name was changed to United Cancer Services of Elkhart County, Inc. in 1986.

From the 1990s on, the agency focused on our current mission of providing emotional and financial support to local cancer patients and has served thousands of patients and their families ever since.

In March 2018, the name was changed to Cancer Resources for Elkhart County in hopes of better communicating our grass roots founding and focus on helping local cancer patients.

Now, as health care premiums and deductibles skyrocket, your neighbors in cancer treatment have never needed your help more. The blessing of the body of technology that are saving more cancer patients each year is balanced with the curse of the devastating financial burden that many families never recover from.

Will you help? Please donate, sponsor or volunteer. Your support helps your neighbors as we are 100% Elkhart County!

Announcements

November is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month. If you don’t have symptoms or a family history, most doctors do not perform a physical check but rely solely on blood tests, so now is the time to schedule your physical.