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Women of Faith
Melissa Veselovsky
Providing cancer outreach
By Claudia I. Provencio, The Catholic Sun
October 19, 2006
When Melissa Veselovsky left her job to focus on her family, she never imagined she’d find something that brought her greater fulfillment than her work in public relations.
“On Ash Wednesday 2003, my young daughter kept smiling and playing with the person in the pew behind me,” said the mother of two.
“I didn’t pay much attention to it but when I turned around, I found that it was a woman that I had gone on retreat with a year or so before,” she said.
The woman shared she was receiving treatment for breast cancer and was having a bad day.
“The Holy Spirit moved me,” Veselovsky said. The petite brunette went home that very night and wrote the framework for the diocese’s “Healing Through the Body of Christ” cancer ministry, even though she didn’t have much experience in the area.
Veselovsky, who was raised by a Catholic mother and an agnostic father, wasn’t even comfortable typing the ministry’s religious title. Never one to speak the words “God” or “Christ” out loud, she kept deleting the words on her computer screen.
But six years into her fledgling Catholic faith, she knew it was time to embrace her baptismal calling.
“Everything seemed to be moved by the Spirit. The framework was developed almost instantly,” Veselovsky said.
Having briefly volunteered with a cancer ministry in college and having lost her grandfather to the disease, she knew she wanted the cancer outreach to have a spiritual component.
She also knew she needed help developing a program that prepared volunteers for the emotional and physical toll of working with people battling cancer.
She called the American Cancer Society and the two worked together to develop the society’s “Listen, Inform, Nurture and Care” (L.I.N.C.) program to address the growing need for cancer ministries.
“L.I.N.C. is a program that matches people affected by cancer to trained volunteers with similar experiences,” Veselovsky said. “L.I.N.C. helps not only the person diagnosed but also friends and family because we recognize that cancer affects the whole family.”
In 2004, the American Cancer Society estimated 1.3 million new cancer cases would be diagnosed in the United States, including 23,560 in Arizona, where the disease is the state’s second leading cause of death.
“There is so much hope with treating cancer today and there is so much that people can do for themselves, even if they are just small day-to-day decisions that will empower them to take control of their lives and their cancer treatment,” Veselovsky said.
“Healing Though the Body of Christ” offers emotional support, education and empowerment programs, and assistance with small domestic chores.
Volunteers also sew heart-shaped pillows, write encouraging cards and letters, and network with organizations like the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and The Wellness Community to meet as many needs as possible.
In addition, all volunteers receive L.I.N.C. training in order to make one-on-one visits and house calls to people in need of the cancer ministry’s services. In return, diocesan volunteers also serve the American Cancer Society.
“Partnering with Melissa and her program has really given us access to a much more diverse volunteer base and by diverse, I mean individuals with many different types of cancer and caregivers,” said Cindy Bennette, cancer resource director for the American Cancer Society’s Great West Division.
The society receives volunteers knowledgeable in specific cancers and the emotional and physical stages associated with these diseases, and the diocese gets access to cancer information specific to the needs of the people it’s serving.
“Neither organization has any influence on the other,” Veselovsky said. “We just have the same goal — improving the quality of life of people affected by cancer.”
The diocese’s ministry, which has served nearly 200 people, has 50 volunteers around the Valley and has helped people as far away as South America and the Philippines, is in the process of expanding to Flagstaff and Cincinnati, Ohio.
Veselovsky is working with the American Cancer Society offices in both cities to establish L.I.N.C. programs and is hoping local parishes will establish “Healing Through the Body of Christ” cancer ministries.
The Phoenix Diocese is also starting to develop its cancer ministry for other religions so “that each faith community can minister to their own people in the manner in which they feel most comfortable,” she said.
While Veselovsky is very devoted to helping people living with cancer, her aunt Cathie Veals said being a wife and mother still comes first in her niece’s life.
“Even though she is very much into this ministry, it doesn’t consume her so that she does have her own life and family life. She is able to manage all of them,” said Veals, who often helps Veselovsky with cancer ministry-related projects.
“She’s a stay-at-home mom when she’s not busy volunteering. She just had surgery a few days before her husband was scheduled to come home from work that took him out of the country and she was adamant that she was going to be the one to pick him up. She is a very devoted wife and mother.”
Veselovsky said balancing her passions isn’t always easy — tough choices sometimes have to be made.
“Sometimes I feel tired or a little down because of the nature of the work and God sends someone my way, either someone struggling with a cancer diagnosis or a volunteer… and it renews me,” she said.
“We can’t change the outcome, but we can change the journey.”
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Claudia I. Provencio/CATHOLIC SUN
Melissa Veselovsky, of the Healing Through the Body of Christ cancer ministry, assembles a box of informational materials for cancer survivors.
Women of Faith
Who: Melissa Veselovsky
What: Executive Coordinator, Healing Through the Body of Christ Cancer Ministry
Support offered: One-on-one outreach, emotional and spiritual support, transportation assistance and domestic help.
Contact: (602) 354-2371.
To suggest a Woman of Faith, e-mail cprovencio@catholicsun.org
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