Get Involved

Thank you for your interest in volunteering for Walk with Me! Read on to see the different ways you can participate as a cancer survivor, a loved one who has had indirect experience with cancer, or someone who has no experience with cancer. Currently, we are looking for volunteers for our one-on-one support program, writers for Cancerpedia, and individuals who can help us with marketing and outreach.

Support Volunteer

Would you like to support cancer patients or their loved ones by providing moral and emotional support? Then consider volunteering for our one-on-one support program!

Why Join
As a support volunteer, you make a difference in an individual's life by providing them crucial support in one of life's toughest journeys. While diagnoses and treatment outcomes may not always be predictable, being there for a patient or a patient's loved one can provide them a sense of comfort, as they know that they always have you to talk to. Not only does being a volunteer make an impact on the participant, but it also positively affects your own life in a variety of ways. Through the stories and experiences that you exchange with your match, you may find yourself gaining a new, fresh outlook on life. Furthermore, our support program is extremely flexible, and you can choose which times to meet with your match.
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Eligibility
Our only expectation for volunteers is that they will be open-minded individuals who will patiently listen to and understand their match's feelings and concerns. While direct or indirect experience with cancer is beneficial, we don't require volunteers to have had cancer or to have a loved one that has or had cancer. Although our participants are exclusively teenagers, we welcome all age groups to volunteer.

Commitment
The minimum time commitment is five hours per month. We require all volunteers to allocate at least one hour a week to meet with their match, though some participants may choose to meet just once every two weeks. You can be matched to as many participants as you would like. For each participant, we ask that you also spend an hour at the end of each month to write up a 200-300 word summary that you will share with us, discussing how your meetings are going.

Process
After a short application and training process, we will pair you with a match, based on both of your preferences, experiences, interests, and availability. You'll then reach out to your match to set up a mutually convenient time for weekly or bi-weekly one-hour meetings. You and your match can decide what to do in those meetings (it can be whatever you both think works best on that day) which can be just general check-ins, conversations regarding their current status, or just playing games and discussing hobbies to have a relaxing time together. Throughout your volunteering experience, you can always contact us for meeting ideas, help, and advice.

Getting Started
  1. Fill out our volunteer application, which should take 10-20 minutes. We'll first ask you about your general background (age, gender identity, general location), experience with cancer if applicable (e.g. whether you or a loved one has or had cancer and if so, the cancer stage and cancer type), interests, and hobbies. The second and last part of the form gathers information about your preferred match.
  2. Once we have received your application, we will reach out and ask you to meet for 20-30 minutes with someone on our team, who will provide you more information about volunteering and can answer any questions that you may have.
  3. After we have met with you, we will begin finding your match. In the meantime, you can attend the training sessions (that must be completed before you can meet with any participant). More information about volunteer training will be provided during the interview.

Blogging

Want to contribute posts to our information hub, Cancerpedia? You would help us modify pages from Cancerquest (www.cancerquest.org), an existing cancer education website, to better engage a teen audience. The commitment is extremely flexible.

Why Join
By simplifying intimidating biology terms and providing cancer information in a more comprehensible manner, you'd not only help affected teenagers save time understanding their own or their loved one's situation, but also positively influence teenagers who have had no encounter with cancer, to make better choices in the future to protect their health. Additionally, writing about cancer is a great way to learn something new and to pursue an interest in cancer research.

Eligibility
We require that all our bloggers be at least 15 years of age and to have taken an introductory (pre-AP/pre-IB or AP/IB) science course.
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Commitment
You can choose to be a full-time or a part-time blogger. As a full-time blogger, you are expected to post at least once every three weeks, and as a part-time blogger, at least once every six weeks. You can choose what you will write on from three fields - cancer overview (which requires completion of AP Biology), cancer by type, and cancer prevention. Each post takes about six hours (four hours for an initial draft and two hours for revision).
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Process
After a short application and interview, we will pair you up with an experienced blogger, with whom you will write your first blog. For subsequent blogs, you will first inform your blog editor about which post you would like to write and then work independently on modifying the Cancerpedia page. Within ten days (for full-time bloggers) or twenty days (for part-time bloggers) since choosing a topic, you should notify the blog editor that you have completed your initial draft. The editor will then return feedback five days (for full-time bloggers) or seven days (for part-time bloggers) after you have submitted your post for review. After you have responded to the feedback, the blog editor will review your post one last time before publishing it on Cancerpedia!
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Getting Started

  1. Fill out our blogger application, which should take 10-20 minutes. We will ask you about your background in science and writing, ask for a writing sample, and ask about your general availability.
  2. After we have received your application, we will set up an interview with you and one of our editors. Once you have been accepted, we will look for an experienced blogger to work with you in writing your first blog post.

Operations

Want to help run or market Walk with Me? First, look over the available positions and their brief descriptions. Working in operations generally requires a greater time commitment, but these roles are extremely important to ensuring that Walk with Me runs smoothly. If you are interested, please fill out the team application.