JACKSON TWP. – When a person is diagnosed with cancer, it often triggers challenges that go beyond the disease itself.
Patients often get into debt and feel isolated and overwhelmed.
For this reason, friends of the late Susie Darling of Perry Township founded Aunt Susie’s Cancer Wellness Center, which offers free support in the form of transportation to treatment, housekeeping, meal vouchers, medical equipment and items such as wigs and mastectomy bras.
Aunt Susie’s this week merged with Stewart’s Caring Place, a cancer wellness center based in Copley Township, with the goal of expanding its reach and offering even more services.
“There will still be a Stark location and that Stark location will always, in some sense, bear the name of Aunt Susie’s, just to preserve the legacy of what they were able to accomplish here,” said retired oncologist Dr. Dina Rooney, executive director since 2022.
The new name of the Stark County location is Stewart’s Caring Place: Aunt Susie’s Cancer Wellness Center.
“We are so excited to be welcomed into the Stark community and into this wonderful facility and this wonderful organization that they have put so much effort into building,” said Sarah Vojtek, president and CEO of Stewart’s Caring Place. “We’re just excited for the next chapter of both organizations together.”
Merger of Stewart’s Caring Place and Aunt Susie’s: “We’re getting bigger and better”
Established by a foundation in 2004, Stewart’s Caring Place is named after the late Dr. Stewart Surloff, an Akron podiatrist who died in 2001 after being diagnosed with lung cancer.
Vojtek said there will be a single nonprofit board that will include people from Stark County.
Services offered by Aunt Susie’s include a support program where volunteers meet one-on-one with clients several times a month, and a sewing group that makes “Dignity Tops,” which are basically surgical tops modified for radiation and ports, as well as padded seatbelt covers and post-operative pillows.
In total we have around 110 customers.
“Since 2022, we’ve more than tripled, almost quadrupled, the amount we spend per year on services to clients,” Rooney said. “But I’ve taken it as far as I could with my skills and the volunteer base we have. And so in January, we reached out to Stewart’s and asked if they would be interested in helping us get bigger and better.”
“Cancer affects people in so many different ways”
Vojtek said they are honored by the new partnership.
For cancer patients, she said, “there is much more to consider. Medical treatments cannot cure everything.”
Rooney agreed, saying cancer is different from other diseases.
“Cancer affects people in so many different ways,” she said. “It can be affected by your ethnicity, your race, your religion, and because everyone has a different belief system and a different opinion about the health care system. But I think the big problem is just the word ‘cancer.'”
Rooney said that when a person develops cancer, every aspect of life is affected; a patient’s psyche can be as important as their treatment.
“For me, the whole psychosocial aspect of healing is as important as good treatment and nutrition,” she said. “You’re scared for your life, you’re scared for all your family and friends, and your family and friends are scared of losing you.”
Stewart’s Caring Place: Aunt Susie’s Cancer Wellness Center is located at 2813 Whipple Ave. NW near the Acme store. For more information, call 330-400-1215 or visit the agency’s Facebook page.
Reach Charita at 330-580-8313 or [email protected].
On Twitter: @cgoshayREP
