A pioneer in cancer support groups in Simcoe-Muskoka, Patricia Gilbert began her philanthropic journey with cancer patients more than two decades ago by wondering how she could possibly help people navigate the aftermath of treatment.
Gilbert was dissatisfied with the fate of a close friend who was left behind after completing therapy. Suddenly, the doctors and nurses who had been so great during her treatment weren't available anymore because the hospital was dealing with the influx of new patients.
“It was just as if a door closed behind her. I looked around and thought it's not right. People who finish treatment still need help," she tells BarrieToday.
Gilbert was at her kitchen table and the year was 1998. She got a pencil and sketched out what would become Gilda’s Club Simcoe Muskoka, a place to serve all those impacted by cancer and their families.
“I showed my plan to a good friend and she said she wished it had been available when her husband Larry was alive because he died from prostate cancer,” Gilbert remembers.
From that moment on, Gilbert started gathering talented people around her for legal, accounting and fundraising matters. In 2003, she received the approval for a new Gilda’s Club location and the project took off.
Gilbert recalled a time when she asked her husband at the construction site what the black things sticking up out of the sand were. He replied those were sewer pipes.
“That was a huge, huge step in the right direction. I rushed home and I emailed all the board saying, 'Hey folks, we have sewer pipes. We are really on our way'.”
Almost a decade later, in 2011, after a seven-year capital campaign spearheaded by Gilbert, the clubhouse was officially opened. Guests included Joanna Bull, co-founder of the flagship Gilda’s Club in New York, named in honour of actress and comedian Gilda Radner, who died of ovarian cancer in 1989.
Gilda’s Club Simcoe Muskoka, one of just two Gilda’s Club locations in Canada, provides support and networking groups, lectures, workshops, and social events in a home-like setting.
“If you have stand in the reception area, you may hear the laughter coming from the kitchen, especially when the ladies are baking,” Gilbert says.
She believes that sharing smiles, laughs, hugs, and information together is a way of saying that no one has to face cancer alone.
The support groups available at Gilda’s Club include those for terminal and late-stage patients, post-treatment patients and caregivers. The club also offers networking groups for breast, blood and metastatic cancers, as well as workshops for adults supporting children and youth touched by cancer.
“We want people living with cancer to have the best support they can possibly have on such circumstances. And Gilda's Club is one of the best places for them to be," Gilbert says.
With the addition of virtual programming during the pandemic, the club now has group participants from Ottawa, Thunder Bay, Timmins, and Sarnia.
“The virtual programs should stay because there are people that don't have the energy, the ability to come to the Barrie clubhouse," she adds.
Despite increasing community participation, Gilbert says there are still people who do not know about Gilda's Club.
“We want to get that word out. We're here. We're a family and we'll knit together. Everyone is welcome to the club," she says.
Gilbert reminds people that Gilda’s Club does not receive government support and therefore relies solely on the generosity of the community. She says she's proud of the role played by the community, who have come through with flying colours.
“One of my best memories was being in Gilda’s Club when the children from the nursery at the end of Quarry Ridge Road came into the clubhouse all holding hands. Everyone had a small bag with pennies, nickels, and dimes to donate to Gilda’s Club," she says.
Looking back many years later, Gilbert reflects on the incredible story of Gilda’s Club Simcoe Muskoka starting from a piece of paper on a kitchen table.
“It's just awesome," she says.
Gilda’s Club Simcoe Muskoka is across the street from Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre (RVH) and the Simcoe Muskoka Regional Cancer Program.
For more information, visit www.gildasclubsimcoemuskoka.org.
Gilda’s Club Simcoe Muskoka is affiliated of the Cancer Support Community organization, born from the merger of Gilda's Club Worldwide and The Wellness Community in 2009.
