Latest / Hart & Hustle Podcast / How One Nonprofit Transforms Lives: The Untold Stories Behind Cancer Support
Transcript
- Efrain: Welcome back to the Heart and Hustle Podcast. We got Miss Sonia in the building all the way from the West Coast. How you doing, ma'am? Sonia Sifuentes: Good morning, I'm doing well. How are you doing? Efrain: You know, I it's good. It is now currently Wednesday. We're almost at the end of the week. Can't believe that it's almost there. I just told you I've got this event coming up, so I'm counting down the days. But how you doing? Sonia Sifuentes: I'm doing well. I'm actually trying to wrap up the week a little early. I'm headed to Hawaii for a little trip with my sister. So looking forward to that. Efrain: First time? Sonia Sifuentes: First time. tropical storm may be headed their way, but we'll make do. I'm excited to just Efrain: About to say that not gonna stop you from getting on that plane, right? Good. Hop hopefully not. Hopefully not. Definitely Sonia Sifuentes: Not yet. Nope. Unless it turns into a hurricane. But I don't think we're there yet, so we'll see. Yeah. Efrain: I s we need it. You talked about the non profit world. We do not turn it off as much as and it it not because not because someone forces us to. It's truly the passion and purpose that we have to make a difference. and you're in a special organization. If you can tell people what organization are you representing? Sonia Sifuentes: Yeah, so I work for Bay Area Cancer Connections. We're a nonprofit organization that was founded in nineteen ninety three in Palo Alto, California. but we've recently moved to San Mateo, California and we're still serving the entire Bay Area and now with access to virtual programming, we're serving people in other states and even other countries. Efrain: Wow. And how how many people do you think you guys serve? I can only imagine it's a lot. You mentioned all these different locations. Sonia Sifuentes: Yeah. so annually we're about around three thousand clients a year. I think in our total lifetime we've served over forty thousand clients. so yeah, we're here for the long run, here to stay. Efrain: What brings you to an organization like this? I mean, this is passion purpose work. Sonia Sifuentes: Yeah. you know, I ended up here not by chance, but I was graduating college and wasn't sure what my next step was gonna be. So I was fortunate enough to be in a situation where I didn't have to rush to find a job. And so I really just took my time on the job boards and just trying to find what would make me happy in that first, you know, big girl job after college. So yeah. Efrain: Big girl to them. Sonia Sifuentes: So I saw the position open for program associate here at Bay Area Cancer Connections, and it sounded great. I came in to interview and I loved the mission. I loved the people, I loved the work that I would get to do, which was a nice balance of helping people directly, like helping people who would walk into our office, but at the Efrain: Yeah. Sonia Sifuentes: same time it offered a lot of behind the scenes coordination, which I really enjoy. so I took a chance and fell in love with it. and yeah, I've been with the organization for almost six years in total. Efrain: So what does your day to day look like? Starting you told me at seven Sonia Sifuentes: Yeah. Efrain: o'clock in the morning. What what does that look like for you? Sonia Sifuentes: Yeah, lots of emails. every day is a little differently, but my day consists of just working with my team primarily to make sure that they're f they feel supported and that they have what they need to provide our the services that we offer to anyone who calls or walks in or emails us. And we have over 30 different programs and services. So there's just a lot of coordination that's always happening with our support group facilitators. with bringing special presentations to the organization and finding the speakers for that for those presentations. and right now we're actually in our busy season with ovarian cancer awareness month and also getting ready for breast cancer awareness month, and our biggest event of the year, which is our annual cancer conference that happens in November. So lots to do. Efrain: I don't know if you heard son, but he's definitely trying to get in here. Yeah, he's like, Dad, let me Sonia Sifuentes: Yeah, he wanna he wants to join us. Efrain: in and and all I hear is my wife saying, Shh. but that's that's that's the life of working from home for sure. It's such a Sonia Sifuentes: Yeah. Efrain: a blessing, you know, and sometimes it's a thing that you gotta kinda control in the the environment. But no, that's so cool. Sonia Sifuentes: I get it. Yeah. Efrain: I I it is not easy work, I can imagine, as well. Like kind of going through stories, hearing what's kind of out there, but being able to kinda pour back in and and being that I would say the organization that provides resources, provides hope, provides connections. I can imagine that's what kind of fills your cup. What do you say? Sonia Sifuentes: Yeah, yeah, it's it's purposeful work that we do. we have such a privilege and an honor to walk alongside our clients as they face a pretty scary time in their lives, which is a cancer diagnosis and the treatment that follows. And even afterwards. It's not just done when the chemotherapy or the surgery or the radiation is done. cancer truly impacts their whole life. And so it It is an honor to be able to provide what they need. And while research and and treatment has made great advances, there's still a lot a big gap in how our society cares for the whole person when they're facing an illness like cancer. So we're here to fill that gap. Efrain: Yeah. I I was just talking to someone from a different organization, kinda very similar, and just talked about not even just those that are being impacted by the cancer, but the families, the kids, you know, and and really having to help all of them in need because what does it look like for a a child seeing their mom or dad or kind of go through some of these things is though they need resources. Like this is truly a big job, to help these families navigate such a scary time in someone's life. How how big is the organization? Like I can imagine there's a lot of you guys that really partake in this. Sonia Sifuentes: We're we've actually grown a lot over the last year. We're at sixteen staff members, but we truly couldn't do our work without our force of volunteers. We have over three hundred volunteers that support us day in and day out through different tasks from administrative tasks to being out in the community and spreading the word to helping us at events. so we're we're a strong team, but it definitely involves our our volunteers. Efrain: Are you guys leveraging tools such as AI or other technology pieces nowadays to kind of continue to spread the word and I wouldn't say Sonia Sifuentes: Yeah. Efrain: replace a human, but just to amplify the mission in in different ways? Sonia Sifuentes: Yeah, we're working on it. we came from writing down our client calls on a notepad and pen. and now we just moved into a brand new database that's really gonna work with us to capture the data that we need so we can, you know, provide what the clients need. but AI we're adopting it in very careful ways. I think something that you'll always get when you call BACC is a a person answering the phone. and we never want to lose that warm human touch. So we're adopting AI in ways that still allow us to be humans with our clients and to still provide that personalized and warm touch whenever they interact with us. Efrain: Are guys finding it hard as well through the times that we're in right now to just kind of navigate? I know there's so many nonprofits and then the people in the healthcare industry that are kind of almost in panic mode due to what's really happening with budget cuts. Is that something that you guys rely on or is it always you talked about just volunteers, is also reaching out to donors and making sure that we're pivoting in that space as well. Sonia Sifuentes: Yeah, we're we're fortunate enough to have a lot of support from donors locally in the Bay Area. so we haven't directly been affected by budget cuts that have been made recently, but we are seeing it in demand for our programs, especially our financial assistance programs. Clients are coming to us after being turned away from other programs that have lost their funding, run out of funding, or they simply can't find programs that they're eligible for. So we're very fortunate enough to be in a healthy status when it comes to finances and and being able to lend a hand even when they might not fall within our our criteria that we normally serve. Efrain: How does someone find out about you guys, Sonia? Is it just kind of social? Is it word of mouth? Is it that you guys do a really good job marketing, billboards? What does that look like? Sonia Sifuentes: Yeah, another work in progress for a nonprofit. I'm sure it's it's a common theme for nonprofits. we don't want to be a secret, but we also have a small team. So word of mouth is a huge way that people find out about us. I always tell my friends or any person I meet when I tell them about BACC, you know, I I want you to know about us. I hope you never have to use us, our programs and our services, but I want you to know that we're there. Should you or someone you know need us. But we're actually very lucky to be in the Bay Area. We're surrounded by great health systems. So we reach out to them. We have great connections at the hospitals nearby. And so it's really nice to be able to have the doctors share our information after they provide a diagnosis to someone. So oftentimes we're getting a call from clients as they're leaving their doctor's office with a brand new. very scary diagnosis. So word of mouth, health systems in the area. And we're getting bigger on social media. so hopefully we'll start getting some traction there too. Efrain: So I'm gonna see you on some piece of content doing something. Cause nowadays I feel like when you do content, you gotta like entertain. So are we gonna see Sony at some point just entertaining on on social media? Sonia Sifuentes: You will not. I am I am more of the behind the scenes person. but I'll be in pictures, I'll be smiling, but I'm I'm not an actor, I'm not entertainer by any means, so I'll be behind the camera, probably the one holding the camera. Yeah. I hope not. Efrain: Never say never say they're gonna pull up on one day with you on a camera and say, All right, Sonya, we need you you know, one of the biggest things that you kinda mention is word of mouth, and just the relationship building between hospitals or centers and and spreading the word. How important is that? Because I think when we think about just getting word out is definitely relationship building. It is definitely tr having trust. So it looks like you guys have built that for For someone to say, Hey, reach out to these individuals. How important do you think that is? Sonia Sifuentes: I think it's everything. I don't think we would be here 33 years later without our partners and our network. because one thing we often struggle here as a team is that we have a hard time saying no and we have a hard time when we can't help someone. but we've recently, you know, decided that it's okay that we can't be the ones to do everything for everyone, that we have partners in the area who are doing great work as well. and so if if we don't have the program or service, it's really nice for us to say, you know, we don't have it, but go check out our partners across the bay, they'll be able to help you with this. So it's it's gotten us to where we are today, having our network of partners and and it's important because there are there are a lot of people who need support. resources are limited sometimes, but when you have a good network, you're able to to care for people regardless. Efrain: You said six years, right? You were you've been with the organization? Sonia Sifuentes: Just about, yeah. Three years as a program associate right after college and then I took a little break to go pursue my master of public health and I came back as the director of programs. So almost three years in this role. Efrain: Gotta gotta so I can only imagine because sometimes we may do this work and forget the why, that there's a good story that reminds you of why you do it. Is there something that you can share that kind of just always reminds you of it's not about me, but it's about these stories. 'Cause I think when we when we look at representation, it's not so much the color of our skins, but the stories that we tell that allow us to provide hope and that provide us to empower others. Any stories that come to mind, Sonia? Sonia Sifuentes: Yeah, it was my very first client that I served in the boutique. we have a boutique where we offer free wigs, breast prosthetics, and post massectomy bras. And I was brand new to the organization, but a client walked in who only spoke Spanish. So they were like, You're up. so I go into the boutique, I talk to her. It it feels like I'm talking to an aunt. She's very warm, she's very positive. And I get her the bras that she's looking for, and I excuse myself so that she can have privacy to change. And she says in Spanish, honey, she's like, You've seen everything I'm about to show you. She says, I just you have two of them, I just have one of them. and we just started cracking up and yeah, I got to be there in the room while she tried on the bras, while I fitted her with the prosthetics so she could put it into the pocket of the bra. And it was just such a meaningful experience to be able to see her confidence build once she put on the bra and once she saw herself in the mirror that she looked normal again, that she had two breasts, and that we were able to do that with 30 minutes and a good conversation and a private warm space. and it was my very first boutique appointment. I thought I needed more practice, but Really, you just need to have the want to help someone and it worked out beautifully. And I would say just our clients every day, whether it's a phone call, whether it's them coming into the office or it's seeing what we're able to do for them after they join one of our programs, it really keeps the the cup full and it keeps you going Efrain: Mm-hmm. Sonia Sifuentes: on the the long days at work. Efrain: What does this work mean to you? I mean hearing stories like that where people one may come with the confidence, but sometimes may not come with the confidence. And you being able to allow someone to feel seen, feel loved, cared for. What does this work really mean for you, Sonia? Sonia Sifuentes: Yeah, I mean it it's kind of everything. I I get to do this for a living. I get to help people and and get paid for it. It feels like the biggest honor of my life to do this work. And to work at a place like Bay Area Cancer Connections where we're not we're not listening to anyone but the clients. And our job is to really just listen and hear what the needs are and then turn that into into programs and services and support for for people. yeah. Efrain: Director of programs, how many programs do you guys have throughout the organization? Sonia Sifuentes: Yeah, we have around thirty. we just yeah, we just let go of some programming to make room for for new programs where we hope to expand in the next couple of years. Efrain: What do those programs entail? I know you mentioned boutique being one of them. I think that's actually pretty cool. Sonia Sifuentes: Yeah, it's one of our most popular services. we have a beautiful boutique here in San Mateo at our office. one of the ways we hope to expand that, which is already in in the works, is through our mobile resource center. she's a school bus named Tiffany because she's Tiffany Blue. And we pack our boutique supplies, the the wigs, the bras, the prosthetics, and we go to communities where they don't have these resources, and we set up shop and we provide appointments for people. in their community, so making it easy for them to access these these items that they need. We're hopeful for more buses in the future and for our staff to be in every corner of the Bay Area, providing these items at ease of access and all completely free, of course. And then the other big area of where we hope to expand is for our survivorship programming, which is for those who have finished treatment and also for those clients who are living with cancer. So it's it's where we see the biggest need right now. And we've been doing a lot of listening and focus groups and hoping to come up with some meaningful programs that can support clients throughout the next chapter of their life. Efrain: Some good programs for sure to continue to just uplift. When when you think of what it looks like two, three years from now, I can imagine that you have a vision, you have an idea of where you would want to see the organization. What does that look like? Sonia Sifuentes: Yeah, it looks like us partnering in different ways in different communities, whether getting a little space at a hospital or working with a community partner to bring the bus to their office and serve their clients. but it looks like clients being able to call us and us being able to say, yeah, we'll be in your community on this day. What do you need and how can we help? so it's it's expansion in creative ways that are making BACC more and more accessible to anyone who needs us in the Bay Area. Efrain: If you can kinda talk about expansion, because it looks like you already you guys already expanded, right? You talked about what it looked like six years ago from look one location to another. What's what does that look like from six years ago? Where were you when you started and where are you guys today? So people can actually see one, the need, because the the only way you guys grow is because people need you guys. But what does that look like for growth for people who can understand? Sonia Sifuentes: Yeah, so when I first joined the organization, we were fully in person. All of our programs happened at the office and we had no Zoom. I think Zoom was around. We just didn't have it at our Efrain: And Sonia Sifuentes: in our work. and during COVID, I wasn't with the organization, but from one day to the next, it pivoted to being almost fully virtual. And over the past couple of years, we've been trying to settle into that new the new normal of what our programs are gonna look like in the future because people don't want to come back in person and we talked about it a little bit but the traffic and the time it takes and being in treatment for cancer is not gonna make you want to get in your car and drive to our office in San Mateo for a one hour program. So we've been improving our programming online and we've also been exploring with social gatherings for people to still be able to come to the office every couple of months, hang out with the community they've built and get those hugs or get those, you know, nice yeah, just being with people, which is what you can't replace on Zoom, that that Efrain: Right. Sonia Sifuentes: connection. Efrain: Correct. And and I also think that the work that you do is very selfless and sometimes, you know, while you're pouring into others, someone has to be pouring into you, Sonia. Who's pouring into you in the times where sometimes it just seems like, my God, I I'm drained because I've given all I can to these these clients and and to these programs and to these organizations. Who's pouring into you? Sonia Sifuentes: Yeah, you know, I don't know how I would get through the long days if it wasn't for our team. I sometimes stay late and I'll get home and you know, my mom thinks I've been in meetings all day, but I was cracking up with my coworker for the past couple hours just talking about about life. and it it helps. It helps to even when we're going through the difficult situations with clients or where with our programs, it's helpful to know that. we'll be fine because we'll tackle it as a team together and we all have the best intentions, which is just to help our clients. so it it makes it kind of fun, if even if it's a a challenge, there's always something new that pops up. So there's never a dull moment. so that that keeps me going at at home. I mean here at the office. and at home I'm very lucky to have a a very close knit family, my dog and my friends and myself. making sure I I do for myself what I need, which is getting out for a run, getting out for a workout class to keep myself good for everything that the job requires. Efrain: Is that how you recharge yourself? The exercising, the walk the running, the walking, hiking, all that good stuff? Sonia Sifuentes: Yeah, yeah. running exercise classes, also alone time. I'm very much an introvert and I feel like I I turn it on when I'm in the office. but when I get home I enjoy a few hours of quiet time. Yeah. Yeah. Efrain: So this right here is probably a lot then, huh? Just getting on the podcast knowing that people are going to be watching and listening to you. Well you're doing a good job, I want you to know. Sonia Sifuentes: Thank you. I appreciate it. But yeah, this would this is something I would have probably said no to if it wasn't for a little gentle encouragement from my boss. but yeah, Efrain: I love Sonia Sifuentes: definitely not in my comfort zone, but I'm I'm glad I'm doing it. Efrain: For sure. I always say and I might said this earlier, representation is not just in the color of our skins, but the stories that we tell. So you allowing these stories to be told and sharing some of these stories allows someone else to know one that this resources exist. Cause a lot of the times the resources are truly in our own backyards and we just don't don't know about it. But if we can authentically talk about it and Sonya, I appreciate you being authentic with us today and just being yourself, but also sharing those stories of what keeps you going. 'Cause it allows someone else to keep going. We don't know who's watching and who's listening and what seeds you planted or watered today. But showing up and getting uncomfortable is what life's about. You know, sometimes you gotta get uncomfortable. And Sonia, you got uncomfortable today, so I appreciate you. yeah. Sonia Sifuentes: Thank you. Efrain: What do you tell your young version of Sonya that just probably never even knew this world existed? Like, what what do you tell that little girl? Sonia Sifuentes: To just keep exploring. I think growing up in a immigrant household, you were told to either be a d a doctor or a lawyer. and it was kind of all we knew. but to to keep exploring. I never would have ended up here if I didn't just have that curiosity for knowing I wanted to do good work good work, but not knowing what it looked like. so I would tell her to keep exploring and to be okay with her plan not working out like she envisioned when she was ten. Efrain: Yeah. Sonia Sifuentes: and that it's gonna be okay. Efrain: It is. Sometimes our plan is is we think it's a our plan, but it's God's plan, right? And and he's definitely led you onto a a journey that you will you will enjoy and you will learn from and you get to inspire others. Where could people continue to tap in with this organization? You talked about social media, so if you can kind of give us maybe URL, social media s handles so people can kind of tap in. Sonia Sifuentes: Yeah, I'd love to. So online you can find us at BayareaCancer dot org. And that is also our handle for Facebook and Instagram, so at Bay Area Cancer. And we also have a helpline that's open Monday through Friday. we speak Spanish, so please call us if you speak Spanish too. our phone number is six five zero three two six six six eight six. And if you're more comfortable by email, we accept emails too. And that email address is info at bayaria cancer dot org. Efrain: Appreciate you, Sonia. Thank you so much for getting on this call with us today and enlightening us with what's happening on the in the Bayside, in the West Coast, because I am on the East Coast. And I can imagine there's organizations like this throughout, but you guys are definitely doing something special and you are going to continue to change lives by just showing up being authentically you. I'm Efrain. This is Sonia. Make sure you guys type in. Thank you. Sonia Sifuentes: Thank you.