Our guest today is Genna Haddad, who will share with us the mission and impact of Firefly Sisterhood. From One-to-One mentoring between newly diagnosed women and survivors, to providing emotional support and organizing community events, Firefly Sisterhood truly embodies the spirit of compassion and togetherness. We'll hear about the inception of this incredible organization back in 2014 and how it has grown to touch the lives of many across the Twin Cities and beyond. Whether it's a phone call, a text, or a face-to-face meeting, Firefly Sisterhood ensures that no one faces breast cancer alone. Stay tuned as we delve into stories and testimonials, discovering the heartfelt connections made through the program. And for those wondering how they can contribute, Genna will share some valuable insights on fundraising opportunities and volunteering.
Introduction
Jacob Derauf here with Explorer Rogers MN. And today my guest is Genna Haddad with Firefly Sisterhood. Genna, thanks for being on with us today.
Thanks for having me today.
So we're very happy to have you here. Just tell us a little bit about Firefly Sisterhood just to start off with.
About Firefly Sisterhood
Yeah, absolutely. I'd love to share what our organization does. We are a local twin cities based breast cancer organization. We do one-to-one mentoring between newly diagnosed women and breast cancer survivors and thrivers.
That's great to hear. So when did you come into existence then?
2014 was the year Firefly Sisterhood began. Actually started out of General Mills with the Yoplait yogurt team with this idea of a bright vision of no one having to face breast cancer alone.
Okay, that's definitely a great message and very much needed for people going through that. So what are some of the services and support that your organization provides to breast cancer survivors?
Providing One-to-One Mentoring
Yes. So in our program, we take in some breast cancer survivors and thrivers as peer mentor guides. We put them through a training process that just gets them comfortable, sharing about their own experience and talking with others for support through that experience. And then when a woman contacts us that's been diagnosed, we can match them with one of those survivors who had a similar diagnosis, similar treatment plan, similar lifestyle. It's that idea of one-to-one matching, having somebody that you can call, you can text, you can check in with that's going to help you walk through that's been through a similar experience. We also offer some trainings and some events for the women in our program. For example, we do a winter social and a summer social to get them together. We have others in our community and we do a service project together. And then we've got a couple of public events that we do as well. So we've got a couple coming up in the area over the next month. October, of course, is so busy for us.
Where are women in the program from?
Yeah. I would say about 90 % of our peer mentor guides who are the breast cancer survivors and thrivers and the support seekers are here in the Twin Cities. But because we can support each other over phone, over Zoom, over text, we'll support somebody Coast to Coast. So you just never know we might get a support seeker that's in California looking for support, and she may match with somebody in Minnesota. She may match with somebody in Florida. So primarily most people, because we are based here in the Twin Cities and a lot of the healthcare clinics do refer their patients to us. But we do from time to time, get some guides and support seekers outside of Minnesota too.
Ties to Rogers Minnesota
Yeah. So our organization, our office is based in St. Louis Park. But the really cool thing about our organization is there's four staff members and three of us are Rogers residents. Okay. So very much tied in. Yes. And it makes it really nice for us because we can get together at Bookworm Cafe for a cup of coffee, or we can stop at R Social and have a meal. A lot of the organizations in the area support our organization as well. So for example, right now for Breast Cancer Awareness Month, R Social and Maynards are both doing a pink drink for us. And it's a great campaign. People stop in, buy that drink, and then the organization donates a dollar back to Firefly Sisterhood. So we get a lot of support from the Rogers community based on living here and being familiar with people in the community. Yeah.
And on a personal note, we were talking before this interview, and I said, yeah, my wife and I, we did go to R Social and we did see that. I'm like, I'm interviewing Genna on my show next week. So interesting little tidbits and that's tying and how you guys are obviously getting out into the community and sharing your message.
Success Stories and Testimonials from Survivors
So can you share some success stories or testimonials of some breast cancer survivors or people that have gone through your organization?
Yeah. Yes. We get a lot of feedback from the women in our program who contact us for support. I check in with them one month after being matched, and a lot of times they'll give me this feedback like, wow, I didn't even know how much this would impact my experience, but I just feel so good having someone to talk to. We also have doctors and oncology nurses and nurse navigators that report back to us how important this is to their patients. The doctors and the nurses can take the medical stuff, and then they can hand the patient off to us to support the person socially and emotionally. And it really makes a big impact on their healing and their survivorship. Most recently, one of the biggest impacts I saw, we had a table at the State Fair this year and a woman approached our booth. She had been in our program as a support seeker, and she was visiting with me and her husband looked at me and no other words, just thank you. And I could see in his face how much that Firefly Sister had helped his wife through this process.
Yeah, very simple words, but very profound definitely. Especially when you see the face and the expression behind it.
How to Donate
So your organization, like many, you need resources to be able to do the things that you do. So how do you raise funds? How can people get involved? Those type of things.
Yeah, great question. So we are a 501(c)(3), so we are 100 % funded by donations and sponsors. We do two large events every year, so we just had our gala in the beginning of October. And then in May we have an event called Celebrate the Sisterhood. Those two events, we're always looking for sponsors to help provide support for our program and for those events. We do lots of different campaigns throughout the year. We have mission partners. So a mission partner is an organization that pledges $25,000 to our mission, and then we work with them throughout the year for different events. So, for example, we've got an event coming up at Omni Brewing in Maple Grove on October 30th, and that event is sponsored by Genentech. They're doing a breast cancer education event for us. So beyond that, we do a lot of small campaigns. We call it Pinket Campaigns. So like we mentioned, R Social and Maynards are doing a drink give back campaign. We also do some of the local police and fire make a pink patch and they sell that patch and donations come back to Firefly Sisterhood. Just this past weekend, we were honored at the Minnesota Gophers Volleyball game and the St. Cloud State Volleyball game. That helps us get a lot of exposure to our program, helps us find new women that are looking for support, women that are survivors that want to give back, and also finding us volunteers. So doing those events that we have, we're always looking for volunteers to help us at a tabling event, for example. Shoulak Breastfest is a big one that just happened in our area in Corcoran, and we do a tabling event there. So we're always looking for volunteers to help out at events like that.
How to start if you want to Volunteer?
So if somebody does want to volunteer, how would they go about that? Or what's the best way?
The easiest way is to send us an email at info@fireflysisterhood.org. That email comes directly to our staff and we respond within 48 hours. If you're looking for support, if you're looking to become a guide, or if you're looking to volunteer with our organization, we'll get you the right information that you need if you send us an email.
Okay, so is that the best way to get started no matter what you're looking to do? If you're looking how you can get involved, volunteer, financial means, all those types of things, is that the best place to start?
Yeah. We also have a lot of information on our website. I will tell you that our website is under construction. We are launching a new website in the next two months. So we will have more of a volunteer portal once we launch that. Right now we do have links for donating, getting support, and becoming a guide. Okay.
Supporting Breast Cancer Survivors
That one to one is our heart of our program by all means. But again, we do a lot of different events throughout the year. We just had in Saint Paul, we had a woman host a menopause event. And of course, there's a huge tie in with breast cancer and menopause because a lot of women who go through breast cancer treatment end up going into menopause because of those treatments. So we hosted… A Gal hosted a menopause event for us. On October 30th, the breast cancer education event that I'm hosting. Throughout the year, we have these different events. Some of them are closed to the women in our community. We have some survivorship conferences that we host, a couple other educational events. And a lot of times it's us giving an opportunity for our guide and our support seekers to meet each other in person. Once we do that one to one match, a lot of times it's phone calls, texting, and they don't always meet in person until we host an event and they invite each other. So we're always looking for organizations willing to host an event for us. We've done some workout classes.
We've got Jazzercise and Maple Grove is doing a class for us in November, and that's free to the women in our community so they can come together, get a little exercise, meet other breast cancer women, and support each other that way too.
How does matching work for the mentorships?
So when you match someone, do you just here's the match, and then they just go the direction that they're personalized, whatever communication methods work best for them. How exactly does that go?
Yeah, absolutely. So start to finish a support seeker contacts us. We interview them about their diagnosis, their treatment, their lifestyle. Then we go back to our database. We have over 200 volunteer guides right now. We find someone that we feel matches the most closely to their experience, and then we introduce them over an email and then the guide takes it from there. In that training that we do with our guides, we're very explicit that the ball is always in your court. It is your responsibility to reach out to that newly diagnosed woman. These guides know what it was like in the beginning, how overwhelmed and scared you are. And so we expect those guides to lead that conversation and lead that connection. I do a one-month check-in once they've been matched to make sure that they've had that connection, that it's a good connection, that they're hearing from their guide. And then again, at three months, I check in with them and just see how things are going, see if they've had any changes to their treatment, and make sure that that guide match feels like a good match for them still. So yeah, we introduce them over email and then they take it from there.
I know that sounds really good, especially considering you give them the training to make sure that they have some background knowledge and just some communication tests and stuff like that. So that's extremely helpful, definitely.
Yeah. A lot of their training is on empathetic listening, how to move the conversation through the different stages of breast cancer, things like that.
No, those are very helpful when you're getting matched up like that and to have that support, definitely. So just how to get involved just in general, just a little summation of just a couple of different ways that people can get involved.
How to get involved
Yeah. So if you visit our website, we do have sometimes our events posted on the website. Hopefully we'll have that new website launched in the next two months where we'll have a full listing of all the events that we're participating in. The best way to let us know that you're interested in getting involved is send us an email info@fireflysisterhood.org, and we can get in touch with you that way. Otherwise messaging us on our social media. We're very active on Facebook and Instagram. If you send us a message there, we'll get back to you within 24 hours. And we do post a lot of our events that we're hosting on our socials too. So it's a great way to watch for upcoming events.
Yeah, that's a good way. You're on the app anyways. You might as well make sure that you're getting all those events and just the details of things that's going out. So I always recommend follow social media because that's just the easy way because it's going to be right there in front of you, definitely.
Final Thoughts
I just really appreciate you bringing me on today. We're a very small but mighty team here at Firefly Sisterhood, and we're always looking for ways to get our message out there and our mission and how we can support women who've been newly diagnosed with breast cancer. It's a very scary and overwhelming time, and a lot of women might not feel comfortable talking openly with their friends or family that haven't been through it. And so helping them find our organization for that support of somebody who's walk the walk can make such a difference in their healing and their survivorship. So I just appreciate you having me on today, letting me get the word out in the Rogers local area.
My pleasure. Thank you so much for sharing the story you have here of Firefly Sisterhood and all the great things that you're doing. Thank you so much for being on today.
