Connecticut Cancer Activists Ascend Capitol Hill
ADVOCATES
Norwalk Hour
Jamie Hammon
Boston University Washington News Service
9-20-06
WASHINGTON, Sept. 20 – It was a sea of purple t-shirts on Washington’s National Mall and in the halls of Congress Wednesday as Connecticut cancer-survivors and volunteers joined nearly 4,000 from across the nation for the American Cancer Society’s annual lobbying push.
“We’re spending the day celebrating life,” Joe Barbetta of Norwalk said. “We have a number of survivors and a lot of care-givers of people who are fighting the disease in one way or another, and we’re all uniting here, spending the day on Capitol Hill, and taking our message to our leaders.”
Their message was three-fold. First, they asked Congress to expand the funding for breast and cervical cancer screening programs. “We need to make sure it’s getting to the people it needs to get to,” said Barbetta. “Right now it’s only getting to about one in five, and that’s not enough.”
Secondly, they asked Congress for an annual increase of $5 billion for the National Institutes of Health, which includes the National Cancer Institute. “We’re asking for that [increase] on a year to year basis, because just to keep doing what they’re doing year after year doesn’t keep up with inflation,” said Barbetta. “We need to make sure they’re increasing it by five percent every year.”
The final request was that they sign, or reaffirm their commitment to, the society’s “Congressional Cancer Promise,” a vow to push specific pieces legislation aimed at ending suffering and death from cancer by the year 2015.
“It was a very moving meeting,” Sen. Joe Lieberman, who signed the pledge, said of his meeting with Connecticut volunteers. “We’ve all been touched by cancer. I lost my father to colorectal cancer,” he said. “Forty-three percent of us will have some kind of serious cancer in our lifetimes.”
As Barbetta and others from Connecticut met with state representatives, other participants continued their celebration outside on the mall. Each state had its own tent, as well as its own trading cards displaying cancer statistics.
“Everyone’s going around collecting cards from each state, and getting to talk to and see people from other places,” explained Alice Leonard, from Torrington.
American Cancer Society statistics for Connecticut were displayed on the walls of the state’s tent: 4,878 registered cancer-survivors, 32,660 participants, 45 events, and 981 volunteers.
“The reason we collect the data is so we can reach back out to survivors,” said Shannon Stahecki, community executive development officer for Franklin.
“One of our 2015 goals is to raise the quality of life for survivors, and we can only do that by letting them be aware of programs and services that we’re doing, like survivor seminars, look-good-feel-better programs, and pain management initiatives,” Stahecki said. “We want to be able to inform them of all those things in case they want to participate. This is how we can raise their quality of life.”
At dusk, thousands of paper lanterns were lit around the reflecting pool at the Capitol to honor those who triumphed over cancer, and remember those lost.
But the prevailing message of the day was to look ahead rather than behind.
“It’s really about the experience I don’t want to have,” said Barbetta, who has lost both family and friends to cancer. “I am not the son, brother, uncle, or nephew of someone who died of cancer – I want to make sure that that good fortune stays. It’s more about pondering the past, but looking into the future.”
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