CONNECTVirtual programming
TFLB cares about each individual woman,and applies our wrap-around approach to helping women regain their sense of femininity, self-worth, beauty and emotional stability after coping with the taxing effects of cancer and chemotherapy. Our virtual programming project will support our efforts in being able to serve and reach out to more women with cancer, collaborate with all agencies that serve these women, and begin offering them our services, especially women who cannot be in public due to recent chemotherapy or current immune deficiencies.
In which areas of Los Angeles will you be directly working?
County of Los Angeles
In what stage of innovation is this project?
Pilot project or new program
What is the need you’re responding to?
The current need we are responding to is ensuring women have access to our services without having to go out in public or being in a group of people. Women who come to us are looking to empower themselves to participate in their own healing process, They are considered “at risk”, and we know virtual services will allow us to serve them now and in the future without further risk to their health. Our women need the healing tools they learn at every workshop, day retreat, overnight retreat and individual session. In order to continue to provide this support in the upcoming years, we have begun the process of adding virtual programming, which is the focus of this proposal. Attending a virtual session means there is no additional risk to a woman’s health by being around others. We are working with our talented facilitators on transforming workshops and day retreats to be held live and on online platforms. Our virtual programs will be free to all we serve, as are all of our services.
Why is this project important to the work of your organization?
Serving women with cancer is all we do. Most women facing a cancer diagnosis tend to isolate themselves or refuse to talk about the diagnosis in an effort to protect their loved ones. They continue to try to hold down jobs, mother their children, and maintain a household while enduring a grueling chemotherapy or radiation regimen. In the time we have been doing this work we have learned of the unique challenges facing women with cancer and created our current services and programs to alleviate many of the difficulties these women face, difficulties aside from their cancer. We currently serve almost 1,000 women and have been serving women with cancer and adding to their overall wellness for 15 years. Although most women with cancer seek traditional treatment, many leading oncologists now believe that wellness and holistic healing is a critical part of the cancer journey. We have a respect in local cancer communities and a solid reputation in the greater LA County community.
Approximately how many people will be impacted by this proposal?
Direct Impact: 250
Indirect Impact: 2,500
Please describe the broader impact of your proposal.
Our virtual programming will allow us to serve more women, especially those in disenfranchised populations. Our overall message of physical and mental wellness while going through a cancer diagnosis to the virtual world will not only allow us to directly serve more women, it will also reengage those who know someone with cancer to be of more service. Additional impact includes allowing women who are already being served by us to continue services while undergoing treatments and surgeries that might keep them away from public gatherings for a specific amount of time. Additional impact is giving an opportunity to those we serve to continue building relationships with other women with cancer, a big factor in overall wellness.
Please explain how you will define and measure success for your project.
We have recently come to realize that virtual programing is important to many women with cancer who have always had to live as many of us are living now. Although we started implementing this programing because of the current crisis, we now want to grow it so that even when the world is back to normal we can continue to serve more and more women who cannot for health reasons join our events attended by dozens of people. We will measure success by how many women we can share our mission with and how many women we can begin serving from that number. We will create online goals for attendance of each program and work to making sure we serve as many as we can per program. An example of this is that we intend to serve as many women with an online retreat as we would with an in-person retreat, and success would be meeting that goal. As the virtual programming will also support our efforts in collaborating with other organizations, for profit and nonprofit, that serve women with cancer, part of our success will be measured by an increase in those relationships.
Cancer does not discriminate. One thing women served by Living Beauty have in common is that they suffer from cancer. But they come from a wide range of underserved, disenfranchised populations – low income, single parents, military veterans, LGBTQ, and all different ethnicities, ages and economic levels. Ensuring all women in these communities have more access to our programming will be the last way we measure success.
Which of the CONNECT metrics will your submission impact?
Social and emotional support
Which of LA2050’s resources will be of the most value to you?
Access to the LA2050 community
Communications support
Strategy assistance and implementation