Road to Recovery lacks drivers

A lack of volunteers in the Road to Recovery program has caused the American Cancer Society to turn away nearly 70 percent of the requests from cancer patients for rides to their life-saving appointments.

"It's something so simple, if you have a car and you have the availability to go. It's so important and could actually save somebody's life," said Debbie Coover, who began volunteering for the Road to Recovery program in 1990, shortly after a close friend died of cancer. 

Road to Recovery is a program through the American Cancer Society that matches volunteers to cancer patients in need of a ride to weekly appointments. Some appointments may just be regular checkups, while others are for radiation therapy.

"Most of the time, when we take patients for radiation it's because they live alone, they have no family within several hundred miles and/or they have someone they live with but that person has to work full time to cover the medical bills," Coover said.

The lack of drivers in the Road to Recovery program has been causing the program to turn many cancer patients away. For patients going through radiation treatments, a missed appointment can be life-altering. According to Coover, if a patient misses just one day of treatment, it can add nearly a week to the process.

Volunteers are sent weekly emails that list requests for rides. If volunteers have availability and interest in providing transportation for patients, they are given the patients' contact information so they can arrange pick-up times.

Because a great number of patients in the Road to Recovery program are undergoing radiation therapy, many volunteers must commit six weeks to taking on a new patient. "Our biggest need right now is for drivers," Gina Becker, manager of the Road to Recovery program, said. "It's a very simple process to get trained for, it takes about two to three hours at the most." Alix Horner, cancer survivor and volunteer driver for the Road to Recovery program, said the most rewarding part of volunteering has been the connection that she makes with the patients.

The conversations that she has with patients leave her feeling peace and validation for being able to lend an ear to a person struggling with an illness that she has been through herself. "Sometimes you have to work around their issues about not feeling well, and sometimes you have to drive them around and drop them off without making a connection," Horner said. "I'm always sad when that connection doesn't happen." Coover thinks that the greatest thing a volunteer can gain from the Road to Recovery program is a deep appreciation for life and health.

"The number one thing is the understanding and the appreciation for what you have and what you don't have, and what you don't have is cancer," Coover said. According to Coover, those who wish to volunteer with the program must go through a screening process. The driver must be 21 or older, cannot have a DUI within the last five years, cannot have more than nine points on his or her license and must provide proof of insurance.

With gas prices reaching record highs, many potential volunteers may hesitate to sign up for a program that requires so much driving. However, Road to Recovery has that issue covered.

"If someone were hesitant to participate in this just because of gas, we just need the body," Becker said. "If you can't afford the gas, we have gas cards that we can hand out, just so the patient gets where they need to be." Other potential volunteers may be worried that they would have to drive long distances to pick up patients, or that they wouldn't have time to make such a commitment.

However, volunteers can set the distance that they are willing to drive and are only required to provide transportation for a patient once per year. "Some of our best drivers, when I was a coordinator, I found, were UCF students because they had flexible availability during the daytime," Horner said. While UCF students may not have the funding to donate to the American Cancer Society, Horner believes that they can give something far more valuable – time.

Those who wish to volunteer for the Orlando area Road to Recovery program may contact Cindy Harris at (407) 843-8680 or go to www.cancer.org for more information.