Newport Beach-based Cancer Kinship strives to provide 200 free wigs
Cancer has touched every part of Yoli Origel’s life.
Her mother was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer when Origel was 6 and died four years later. Her sister, too, was diagnosed with that same cancer and died in 2014.
Origel, the youngest of seven children, had her suspicions that she might have cancer in 2007 at the age of 31.
She was later diagnosed with Stage 3 triple-negative breast cancer, and found out her genetic profile put her at risk for other types of cancers too. She survived, and 15 years later, is striving to give back to her community of “cancer warriors” through her nonprofit Cancer Kinship.
The nonprofit was founded in November 2018. Today it has offices in the Melinda Hoag Smith Center for Healthy Living in Newport Beach, the Anaheim Hive and the Kinner Beauty Salon in Brea.
Origel said after she underwent chemotherapy, surgery and radiation she started to mentor other newly diagnosed patients, helping them through the process, even as she was in a lengthy reconstruction period.
She described that period of her life as feeling as though she was “at the top” of her cancer survivorship, but it all came to a crashing halt when her sister died of breast cancer shortly after being diagnosed.
“We caught it too late,” Origel said. “That is when my life went dark and I really had to navigate through the grief and the survivor’s guilt. I wasn’t really aware of survivor’s guilt until I was living in it, but then my breast surgeon asked me if I would mentor a patient again. While I was going through this grief, she encouraged me to tell my story and it helped me with healing. That’s when my wheels started turning.”
Origel, who had lengthy experience working in the nonprofit world, said that she recognized gaps in the services that her mother, her sister and she faced as patients.
“I really leaned on my personal experiences to fill the gaps and the growing needs of cancer survivorship,” she said, adding that she surrounded herself with coaches, executives and other industry experts before she developed a business plan.
“When I decided to develop the business plan, I wanted to make sure what I had in mind and what I was envisioning really met the needs,” Origel said. “The way that I did that was by talking to nurses, my cancer warrior friends and [by looking] back into my own life. My mother faced language barriers as an immigrant from Mexico, and my sister had developmental disabilities that prevented her from managing her own care. There are big problems ... for long-term survival, so I learned more about the needs and growing needs.
“Anything that we developed was going to address the gap. For us, the organization is centered around mental health, cancer and addressing the emotional impact of cancer.”
To do that, Cancer Kinship offers four main programs for support: mentorship, education and empowerment, community resource navigation and the Kinner Beauty Salon, which came online in March 2021 after Cancer Kinship inherited a 20-year-old free wig program from the Susan G. Komen Foundation.
“When is a patient most vulnerable? Especially when you look at suicide ideation and fear, you’re most scared when you first find out and … in chemotherapy … one of the most traumatic experiences is hair loss. One way we can empower diagnosed people early on is by giving them a wig that helps them recognize themselves in a mirror,” Origel said.
The organization initially distributed wigs out of the dining room in her apartment until they secured the Brea location and this year’s goal is to get 200 wigs into the hands of cancer patients. They are aiming to assist at least 400 individuals across all the programs they offer.
As a fairly young organization, Origel said Cancer Kinship is seeking volunteers and monetary donations to help provide funding for those wigs and for its other programs. People can reach out to the organization directly at cancerkinship.org.
“When I look at the trio of my mother, myself and my sister, we all had unique needs as cancer patients, but what was lacking in all of our care was having somebody to walk alongside with us and help guide us to access resources,” Origel said. “That may have impacted survivability. What [Cancer Kinship] really wants to be is … be here for the community because they’re partners in this ‘cancer storm,’ but we can certainly be the calm within the storm.”
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