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Remarks as prepared for delivery by: Dr.
John R. Kelly Good morning! Welcome to the American Cancer Society's 2000 Nationwide Conference. We're delighted you're here for this nationwide gathering of staff and volunteers from the community level of the organization, as well as from Divisions and the National Home Office, representing all key functions of the Society. This show of force … demonstrating the breadth and depth of our organization … is both symbolic and strategic. As the American Cancer Society enters a new century … with a set of very ambitious and aggressive goals … we must do so in a spirit of collaboration and cooperation. The job ahead of us is too great to even attempt without employing all of our resources in a concerted effort. Cancer Control, Income Development, Marketing, Communications, Cancer Information and Delivery, Advocacy and Research. All of our work. All of our people … staff and volunteers. We must all join hands not only to fortify our own effort, but also to encourage the support of others. The public sector. The private sector. Physicians, policymakers, media, insurers. They all must be engaged in dialogue and purpose if we are to reduce incidence and mortality and improve quality of life at the pace we have committed. How we're going to forge those alliances and accelerate our success will be the subject of much of the next two and a half days. And I trust we'll leave here with renewed energy and commitment. So that's why we're here. … Or is it? Yes, that's the important work we're here to do. But why are we really here? The answer to that question is a personal one for each of us. And, if you'll indulge me for a minute or two, I'd like to tell you mine. I grew up in Utica, Mississippi, a dirt-poor farming community in the southern part of the state where families like mine were still trying to scratch out a living growing and harvesting cotton. I never heard of the American Cancer Society when I was growing up. In fact, I seldom heard the word "cancer" when I was a boy. That's because cancer was one of those words my family and other black families didn't use back then. I've often wondered why that was, and my best guess is that the mystery that shrouded cancer in those days scared us. It was a monster that came unannounced and showed no mercy. So we just didn't talk about it. As a matter of fact, I didn't think much about cancer until my uncle Joe died. My Uncle Joe was blind. But he was an inspiration. That's because he didn't let his blindness, which resulted from a birth defect, stop him from doing just about anything he wanted, including farming 200 acres, taking cattle to market and running a successful business. Of course, he couldn't drive a car, but he got around just fine on an old horse named Troy. It was 10 miles from uncle Joe's house to ours, but he and Troy worked out a system that got them there and back just fine. Troy would come to a fork in the road or an intersection and stop. Counting the stops in his mind, uncle Joe knew exactly where they were and gave Troy a nudge with his knee to proceed … or a tug on the rein to go left or right. Uncle Joe died when I was 19, and I didn't know until a few years later what caused his death. My mother and I were talking one day in her family room in Utica when she told me Uncle Joe had died of colon cancer. Cancer. There was that scary word from my childhood. I think I made up my mind right then and there that someday I would join the fight against cancer. But it wasn't until some 10 years later that I took the first step in that direction. A Cancer Society staff person showed up on my doorstep one night to say one of my neighbors had recommended me as a block crusade captain. Under other circumstances, my first reaction might have been "Thanks, but no thanks." But the thought I was struck with was this: "OK, here's your opportunity to do what you said you were going to do." I'm pretty sure I didn't envision that would lead to 22 years of volunteer work for this great organization. But here I am … honored to be your chairman … and I can't think of any place I'd rather be. I'm sure I'm a lot like most of you. I'm sure most of you have your own stories that brought you here. I'm sure, like myself, you have become addicted to the satisfaction that flows from our efforts. I must admit, I'm obsessed with our mission. But I'm also drawn by another force. One equally as powerful. You all have gotten to me. The people in this room … the thousands of others I've met around the country. You just reached out and grabbed hold of me and wouldn't let go. So, that's why I'm really here. I'm proud of the work we did back in those early days of Residential Crusades in southern Mississippi. In retrospect, it was a slow and tedious process. I'm sure many of you can recall trudging up those driveways and ringing those doorbells. I don't know where
this organization would be … I don't know where our fight against
cancer would stand But today, of course, our delivery methods are different. We combine our effective community-based cancer control interventions with powerful advocacy initiatives and spread our messages all the way from our hometown communities to our nation's capital. As you know, we now have two call center facilities operating as part of the National Cancer Information Center. The new call center in Austin, Texas, expands our nationwide capacity and gives us the ability to provide specific, local market information. NCIC is now answering
more than 1 million calls a year … and once the call centers are
fully staffed, that number will jump to 3 million a year! It also makes it more convenient for donors. This year we expect the web site and call centers to generate more than $5 million. One of the most exciting new services available on the web site is eNCIC - the electronic National Cancer Information Center. A staff of eight cancer information specialists and two oncology nurses uses e-mail to respond to questions and requests for information from the growing number of people who prefer to communicate electronically. Technology is helping keep the doors of this great Society open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You're going to see and hear references to 24 / 7 during this conference to remind us that cancer is a 24 / 7 disease. It never rests; nor can we. And now, with our expanded programs and services, we're able to provide help to those in need, whenever they need it. Undoubtedly, today's American Cancer Society stands stronger and more capable than at any time in its 87-year history. But it's not just technology that allows me say that with so much confidence. It's you. It's the 725 people in this room … representing more than 2.5 million other staff and volunteers … who do the front-line soldiering that makes this army strong. I hope you'll never forget that. We may be a different organization in the respect that we use different tools to accomplish our work … and we may be organized differently … but that hasn't changed who we are or what we are. Our mission hasn't wavered in 87 years. It's to prevent cancer … save lives … and reduce suffering. Frankly, I don't know of a more noble calling. Yes, we're a different organization than the one I joined as a volunteer in Gulfport, Mississippi, 22 years ago. Probably different than the one you joined, too, wherever that was. But we're also the same. We're doing many of the same things, only doing them in a different way. Think of it as stretching our limits without threatening our foundation. We're still heading in the same direction; we're just getting there a different way. When my uncle Joe lost his sight, he didn't stop coming to visit. He just figured out an innovative way to get there. I have every confidence this group of people will figure out how to get where we want to go. Where our nation … and the thousands of people we seek to help …need us to take it. Thank you for everything you do. Let me say that again, THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING YOU DO. Now, let's have a great conference. |
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