How to Join GILDA'S CLUB Rochester New York

There are three easy steps in joining this Free social and emotional support community:

1. Call Gilda's Club at 423-9700
2. Attend a New Member Meeting.
3. Create your personal Customized Membership Plan.

New Member Meeting

A New Member Meeting is facilitated by a Gilda's Club staff member. At the New Member Meetings you will learn:

1. You have common interests and bonds with others living with cancer
2. You can identify with others
3. You are members of a shared community
4. You can reclaim areas of control of your life

What you may not be prepared to learn is:

1. You can consciously structure ways of building social and emotional support
2. You can translate this experience of structure into a sense of mastery and control of your social and emotional lives
3. A plan for emotional and social support may result in a life that feels more in control, with enhanced well-being

Customized Membership Plan

"Customized" conveys that the member is an individual with personal needs which receive specific attention at Gilda's Club.

"Membership" makes the point that at Gilda's Club people gather together and remove themselves from isolation, in a place that belongs to them.

"Plan" implies that emotional and social support need not be by chance but can be structured and their benefits fully realized.

Goals of the Customized Membership Plan

1. Define goals for a one-year plan of action
2. Shape plan for social and emotional support
3. Utilize the Basic III 'Plus' as the structure for that plan and supplement with Team Convene and Family Focus
4. Enlist family and friends in the program
5. Identify personal strengths and resources
6. Define new resource
7. Articulate present problems and needs
8. Identify program activities that address needs
9. Establish sense of order, purpose and structure Gilda's