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American Cancer Society Recruiting Volunteer Drivers

American Cancer Society Youtube
A still from a video promoting the American Cancer Society's Road To Recovery program.

The American Cancer Society is looking for more volunteers to help cancer patients who need transportation to their treatments.

The organization is rebuilding its Road To Recovery program in the Wichita area and in Reno County. The program matches volunteer drivers to cancer patients who need rides to and from cancer-related care.

"We know that transportation is an important piece of patients’ continuing their treatment, and can often times be a barrier," says Jennifer Kelley, senior marketing manager with the American Cancer Society, "so we want to eliminate as many barriers as possible for patients to be able to continue their treatment in a timely manner."

Kelley says last year, 39 people in Wichita and 12 in Reno County were not able to receive rides through the Cancer Society due to a lack of volunteer drivers. She says they’d like to get at least 25 volunteer drivers by the end of the year.

The Cancer Society says about 14,000 Kansas residents will learn they have cancer this year.

Transportation issues arise when patients don’t own a vehicle, can’t afford the extra gasoline, or don’t have access to public transportation. Some may be elderly and unable to drive, too ill to drive, or have no family members or friends who are able to help.

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Follow Deborah Shaar on Twitter @deborahshaar.

To contact KMUW News or to send in a news tip, reach us at news@kmuw.org.

Deborah joined the news team at KMUW in September 2014 as a news reporter. She spent more than a dozen years working in news at both public and commercial radio and television stations in Ohio, West Virginia and Detroit, Michigan. Before relocating to Wichita in 2013, Deborah taught news and broadcasting classes at Tarrant County College in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas area.