CEO Update – October 2020

Welcome to the latest issue of Branching Out and may I wish you all Happy Can Assist Birthday wishes!

At the beginning of October 1955 Mona Ham founded the Cancer Patients Assistance Fund of New South Wales, an organisation with the specific objective then to help ambulatory radiotherapy patients from country areas. The meeting to form the fund was held at her home with a team well aware of the situation that brought them together. Sixty-five years later whilst we have evolved with changes to the delivery of services across the health network, our charity has not lost sight of its need to provide assistance to country families affected by cancer. Nor has it stopped building community-based volunteer networks as Mona and her team intended. Congratulations and thank you to everyone involved, past and present.

Your generosity and commitment to those around you and further afield across our great state is totally inspiring. You are an amazing group of people, this is an amazing charity and I feel extremely privileged to represent the organisation and work together with you. Through drought, floods , fire and pandemics our supporters just get on with ensuring support to those in need. This “can do” and “get on with it” attitude has delivered support and comfort to many people in our communities and we should all be immensely proud of this. Well done.
Please enjoy catching up through these pages with what has been happening across various branches. I’d particularly like to acknowledge the celebrations of our Honorary Life members and thank those who nominated them, ensuring we continue to recognise exemplary service and tenure. Happy Birthday to you all and happy reading.

Emma Phillips

CEO – Can Assist