Connie Hom
A message from our Women and Wellness chair
At VCU Massey Cancer Center, Women and Wellness has a tradition of education, awareness and fundraising. For 27 years, WE have brought together strong, powerful women and raised over $5 million to advance Massey’s mission and fight cancer. WE connect and educate our sisters, bring awareness to our communities about cancer prevention and raise money to advance cancer research and innovation at Massey.
This year, Women and Wellness has a full year of networking and educational programming to engage, excite and empower us all. Women and Wellness is about bringing strong, compassionate and powerful women together to fight cancer. Together, WE are making a future without cancer possible!
We celebrated. Together.
Women and Wellness is about women coming together to make a difference. Thank you to everyone who participated in our Women and Wellness 2021/22 signature and peer to peer events.
Celebration Cocktail Reception on June 15, 2022, at the Jefferson Hotel
On June 15, over 200 women and men gathered at The Jefferson Hotel for an evening of mixing and mingling while celebrating nearly $200,000 raised for the Women and Wellness Clinical Trials Initiative. Massey Director Robert A. Winn, M.D., and legacy and committee members were joined in a video by cancer survivor and author Suleika Jaouad to share updates on cancer research and the importance of clinical trials, which Jaouad credits with saving her life, while highlighting the history and impact of Women and Wellness and of clinical trials through support for the Women and Wellness Clinical Trials Initiative.
Thank you Massey nation
Our corporate and individual champions are making Women and Wellness and the innovative cancer research that is happening every day at Massey possible.
We especially want to acknowledge our lead sponsor TowneBank and our newest sponsor RBCWealth Management, JamesView Wealth Group for supporting Women and Wellness.
Make a Tribute or Memorial Gift to honor a strong woman in your life.
Learn more about ways you can stand with us all year to advance women’s cancer health at Massey. View Sponsorship Opportunities and sign on as a Women and Wellness sponsor. Contact Ocelia Hudson for more information, so we can put your company's name on our partnership list.
Women and Wellness gatherings: Intimate and engaging
All this year, small gatherings hosted by Women and Wellness supporters will provide opportunities to meet and hear from Massey researchers and raise awareness about cancer. Events can be in-person or virtual and hosted in private homes, local restaurants, clubs or elsewhere.
Interested in hosting a Women and Wellness gathering? Check out our Small Gathering Event Toolkit for ideas and tools, reach out to Megan Zapiec to get started, or visit Team Massey Women and Wellness for more information and events.
Emmy award winning journalist Suleika Jaouad, keynote speaker at the Women and Wellness virtual luncheon and book club event on Feb. 8
Each year, Women and Wellness come together for a signature luncheon event serving up plenty of inspiration with a noted featured speaker, including this year’s virtual book club style event featuring keynote speaker Suleika Jaouad.
Jaouad is a cancer survivor, Emmy award-winning columnist, celebrated TEDtalk speaker, and author of the instant New York Times bestselling memoir Between Two Kingdoms, which recounts her odyssey of healing and self-discovery after a diagnosis of leukemia at the age of 22, and the widely acclaimed The New York Times column and video series, “Life, Interrupted.”
Wellness Educational Conference at the Westin Richmond
The Women and Wellness educational mini-conference was a great success on Saturday, March 26. The conference, which was free and open to the public, invited guests to take a deeper dive with Massey leaders on topics like healthy living and nutrition, self-care and wellness, cancer and relationships and thriving with cancer, and hands-on opportunities, such as therapeutic painting and makeup and beauty tips.
View the event program. | View the session schedule.
Clinical trials initiative
Women and Wellness is part of an ongoing women’s clinical trials fundraising initiative at Massey. Clinical trials save lives. In February 2022, Massey launched a new Women and Wellness Clinical Trials initiative to raise critical funds to advance Massey’s clinical trials and research in women’s cancers and to help bring the best and most effective available treatments to all patients in central Virginia.
“Within nearly 8 months [of starting], the clinical trial, had done its job and it had gotten me into full remission. It is not an exaggeration to say that that clinical trial saved my life.” – Suleika Jaouad
Suleika Jaouad, whose cancer has recently returned, joined event chair Connie Hom to launch the new initiative and spoke about the importance of listening to our bodies and of clinical trials, which she credits with saving her life.
“My mother had a gift of 10 years because of the clinical trials that she was on. Everyone deserves a chance to be part of a clinical trial. Clinical trials save lives.” – Liz Hart
Massey Advisory Board member, Liz Hart, shares her mother’s personal experience with a clinical trial at Massey, which she says gave her family all-important extra time together.
Stay informed. Stay connected
Women and Wellness WE-Newsletter
Sign up to receive our Women and Wellness WE-Newsletter every other month to stay up to date on campaign events, research news and highlights and ways you can get involved with Women and Wellness all year long.
WE-News: January/February 2022
WE-News: November/December 2021
WE-News: September/October 2021
Join the Women and Wellness committee
Women and Wellness committee members help plan events and initiatives all year. Reach out to Connie Hom for more info on our subcommittees and ways you can join our dynamic group!
Photos from past Women and Wellness luncheons
