After MCing the American Cancer Society big “An Evening Of Hope” in November 2023, Nestor loved hearing the news fro Vivienne Stearns-Elliott about the groundbreaking of the all-new Hope Lodge in downtown Baltimore, a facility that provides incredible care to those in the battle here at the best hospitals in the world.
Nestor Aparicio and Vivienne Stearns-Elliott discuss the American Cancer Society’s Hope Lodge in Baltimore, which provides free lodging for cancer patients and their caregivers. Hope Lodge, located near Johns Hopkins, offers 26 rooms and has provided 13,000 free nights of stay, saving $2.6 million in hotel costs. A new facility is under construction, increasing capacity by 30%. The American Cancer Society has funded $5 billion in cancer research and offers free services, including a 24/7 helpline. Upcoming events include Relay for Life and Making Strides Against Breast Cancer. Donations and volunteer support are crucial for their operations.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
American Cancer Society, Hope Lodge, cancer treatment, patient support, fundraising, groundbreaking, Baltimore, cancer research, clinical trials, patient accommodation, volunteer activities, cancer awareness, donations, survivorship, community events.
SPEAKERS
Vivienne Stearns-Elliott, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:00
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T, am 1570 tasks in Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive. We are positively here in the epicenter of crab cake, Landia. We’re fatally seafood. We’re fatally Lexington market. There will soon be a fishmongers daughter in Catonsville. Right now, it’s just the the frontage into scaffolding. But you can order faith these crab cakes from anywhere in the world, but you can only get these magic eight ball tickets here in the state of Maryland, and I’m giving them away here at Faith leagues today. We will be at CVP Charles village pub in Towson next Friday, hopefully supporting the Tigers making the tournament. The 21st will be in Essex at Pizza Johns. I will also have the magic eight ball scratch. Also the Maryland lottery. Vivian is back, and it’s, it’s completely my fault. I had the folks in American Cancer Society and Hope Lodge coming over. Hope Lodges two blocks down in one block over from Lexington market. And I had a couple Super Bowl going on, and I had to call you Megan, preparing you for tomorrow. They had to tell everybody, I left the equipment, all of this equipment, this beautiful, Baltimore positive table cloth, all my in the trunk of the car after the first night, a couple Super Bowl. My wife had an appointment in silver spring. My wife took the car. I failed to get the equipment? No, it’s totally my fault. I failed to take the equipment out of the trunk of the car. So you’re here a month later, and I know you want to shout out Hope Lodge. And we had a bunch of folks that were going to come over, but you’re going to fill in nicely for all of
Vivienne Stearns-Elliott 01:33
them. Of course, I am so I’m the Communications Director. My name is Vivian Stearns Elliott, and thank you for having us. Nestor. Nestor was so kind to MC an event that actually is a fundraiser. It’s an annual fundraiser.
Nestor Aparicio 01:46
My hair looked good that night, better than it does now. Everything looked good. I tried, I cried and I screwed up. I feel terrible about I took the podium and just lost my ish. I mean, I started talking about the Oh my god. I started I looked at Michelle and I looked at that incredible butterfly relief Lyd art thing that hangs in the Hope Lodge will be hanging in the new oblige as well. And I just started bawling, because David, David and I were close, and I looked at her, she looked at me. I lost the script. Yeah, I think one of the scripts hit that. I didn’t know that. Oh, I completely I thought you didn’t invite me back, because I That’s it. I weeped. Now, yeah, I wept. Wept to be
Vivienne Stearns-Elliott 02:26
well, we know that cancer is close to your heart, that your wife had a cancer journey, and that that’s very lost, David and, yeah, that very, very sad. And it’s been, I think, almost six. I warned you
Nestor Aparicio 02:37
guys when I you told me Michelle was going to be there. I’m like, I’m not going to make it. And then I gave her the mic. She said, What do you want? Me to do with it? I’m worse than you. So we laugh about it at this point, but, but our artwork is beautiful, and the work you do. And I think the meaning behind all this, my wife’s a cancer survivor. American Cancer Society is on the front of a lot of this. And Hope Lodge really speaks to me and my wife. My wife spent 155 nights in Johns Hopkins in the hospital. I live 3.2 miles away, yeah, from I could have walked every night during Freddie Gray during all of that. And there were a lot of families that did not have a bed nearby, a loved one, nearby caretaker, lots of children, grandchildren, all of that. What you try to solve here locally in this neighborhood, right on the other side of parks, fried chicken here across packa is a beautiful home for people when they’re struggling. You’re there for them.
Vivienne Stearns-Elliott 03:35
Well, you’re right. So let me tell you about the American Cancer Society Hope Lodge. So we have 31 Hope Lodges across the country, and we’re very fortunate to have one here in Baltimore. They’re really gems. They’re home away from homes for people who are coming into major cities like Baltimore, major areas that have cancer centers for treatment, and they live more than an hour away. So you can imagine, on top of the grueling cancer treatment they’re going through and the emotional journal that they’re going through. They also might have to drive an hour, two hours every way for their cancers. Every
Nestor Aparicio 04:08
day. Cancer is not, you know, it’s not Monday, Wednesday, Friday, when you got cancer, you know, like, if you need treatment every day, my wife did. She was an IPOP, back and forth, day treatment, night treatment, overnight, you spike a bad number, and then you have to stay. You drive into the city and think, I’m going home today, and at three o’clock they look at your numbers and say, Nah, can’t send you home tonight. Your risk got to stay. We’re going to get you a bed, right? How many times that happened to my wife? Cancer is volatile, but very volatile,
Vivienne Stearns-Elliott 04:34
but people don’t always get a bed. A lot of treatment is not inpatient anymore. A lot of it is outpatient. You have to have insurance coverage to agree that this is someplace that you need to stay overnight. So what we have is this guest house, basically where the patient, along with a caregiver, who’s usually a family member, somebody close to them, comes and we have rooms with double occupancy, and they can stay as long as they need to. People stay up. To two months, if they’re getting daily radiation treatment or chemo treatment, or, as you say, they think they’re going to be discharged. And then something new happens in their cancer journey. They get a new, you know, phase of diagnosis or treatment.
Nestor Aparicio 05:14
My wife went through neutropenia and and platelets and platelet donation, and just, you know, you get a fever, you get a port infection, just all the above, I mean, so, I mean all every horror story I’ve lived, she’s lived, and I know what goes on in that war zone on a daily basis. And you’re right on campus, right? I Hope Lodge literally
Vivienne Stearns-Elliott 05:35
right on the University of Maryland campus. But we don’t only serve the cancer patients who are coming from out of town to University of Maryland. We have Hopkins patients, Bayview patients, mercy, you’re a Baltimore resource, not just the downtown, right? There’s no requirement to where you’re being treated. And we have a van that takes the patients back and forth for treatment, so you don’t have to worry about transportation. People can come here and park their own cars. I was
Nestor Aparicio 06:01
the driver for my wife, so yeah, it would have been nice if we could have gotten a driver out in
Vivienne Stearns-Elliott 06:05
the door, and then you don’t have to worry about parking at the hospital. So that’s another burden that’s off the patient and the caregiver. And then in addition to that, we have a communal kitchen. People can keep their groceries there. They can cook for themselves. They have spaces where they get together, watch TV, have games together, you know, activities together. We have volunteers that come in and do lovely things with them, whether it’s drawing or painting or crafts or yoga or just bingo, you know, just something to have fun, to take you got to pass time. You got to pass time. Yeah, yeah. And then in addition to that, we have just a lot of volunteers that come in, people who host meals. They’ll come in and they’ll prepare a lovely meal, usually for 30 or 40 people. So over the last year, we’ve had 500 guests, that’s patients and caregivers. We’ve given out 13,000 free nights of stay, and that translates, money wise to $2.6 million saved in hotel costs.
Nestor Aparicio 07:04
Now, this is American Cancer Society underwrites this. Correct? We, yeah,
Vivienne Stearns-Elliott 07:08
totally. But of course, we rely on donations. You know, we’re totally a donor based organization. How old is
Nestor Aparicio 07:15
America cancer? How long has it been going on? 110 years. That’s a lot of cancer. Cancer’s been around too long, I think 110 years, huh?
Vivienne Stearns-Elliott 07:22
Well, it was even before that. But, you know, thanks to some really marvelous people, they were in New York City, some doctors, some activists, they got together and they founded the American Cancer 1915 maybe around then, I guess, right. Sounds right. Wow. Want to do them.
Nestor Aparicio 07:37
I’ve been familiar with that logo, the America can’t probably all my life, maybe Readers Digest when I was a boy or so, you know, just seeing the logo and seeing that a spokesperson like you, by the way, vivid Stern’s Elliot. She got her Northeast Region Director of Marketing. So I, I like that when I get the title right on there, yeah, it says there. It says, so right there. You better update it if it’s the wrong badge on but I’ve been seeing the logo forever, and I think the American society has done a great job of letting people know it’s there. It’s a resource. But I think it’s these feet on the street and these stories that I learned the night I am Senior event down at the Museum of industry now, a year and a half ago, with Michelle modell and her beautiful artwork, doctors that night, survivors that night, donors, that night, auction, all of those type of things. You’re an organization. People know it exists. I don’t think they’re aware of everything you do.
Vivienne Stearns-Elliott 08:29
Well, that’s true. So one thing, one more thing before I tell you what else we do. So our Hope Lodge is moving into new home. We are groundbreaking on Lexington Street, right across from the present Hope Lodge that was built in, I believe, 1985 and so we’re going to have a brand new facility. It’s going to have eight more rooms, our formal ground breaking ceremony kind of thing is in April. How many have now then? Right now we have 26 so you have 3434 so we’re increasing the guest capacity by 30% and we have a fundraising campaign. So if any of your listeners, viewers out there would like to chip in, it is called Hope is home baltimore.org, okay, it’s our website.
Nestor Aparicio 09:13
Events coming up, like the one I did a couple I know that was every other year,
Vivienne Stearns-Elliott 09:18
fall, yeah. Oh, we have tons of events coming up. So this is Relay for Life season that’s taking place. And we have them in communities. We have them at college, as people walk around a track and they they fundraise, they celebrate survivorship, they remember loved ones. One of our really big Hallmark mission events is our Making Strides Against Breast cancer, which is in the fall, in October, during Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and people are already forming teams and volunteering. The nice thing about our events is they are free. We ask you to fundraise. Donations are the way that we are able to, you know, go out there and work on conquering cancer. We do have. Events,
Nestor Aparicio 10:00
though that where’s the website tell me exactly where we should go. Well, if
Vivienne Stearns-Elliott 10:03
you go to cancer.org that is our main information source. It has everything. It has cancer statistics, it has education, it has prevention. You can find out about when you should get your cancer screening, screening. I was
Nestor Aparicio 10:16
getting my wife saw me at Mountain prostate church. Yeah, you know I’m saying she’s like, your kid, gotta go your number, and I gotta, I gotta get there that you’re the one you This is why you’re here. I’m a man. I’m not going to the doctors, right? The men don’t do this, right?
Vivienne Stearns-Elliott 10:31
Yeah, the women sometimes have to push them. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 10:33
here, yeah, I’ll turn around you. Push you. Push me hard. There you go.
Vivienne Stearns-Elliott 10:38
I get that phone number. Cancer
Nestor Aparicio 10:40
Screening saved my life. Here’s the bottom line, when found early colorectal cancer has a 91% five year survival rate. So there you go,
Vivienne Stearns-Elliott 10:48
yes. And the thing about colorectal cancer, it’s one of the few cancers that can be prevented through screening. So if you got your screening and there are polyps, and the doctor can remove the polyps during the colonoscopy, and polyps are precursor to cancer. So some polyps are benign, some are precancerous. Either way, you want to get those benign ones removed, because they can turn precancerous. But that’s the beauty of it. If you have a risk and you develop polyps or it runs in the family, go get your colonoscopy, because you can prevent colon cancer from happening. I
Nestor Aparicio 11:26
needed to hear that. Thank you. You do. I’m a 56 year old male.
Vivienne Stearns-Elliott 11:30
You’re too young. So you start 56 Yeah, you start your hair.
Nestor Aparicio 11:34
Then I’ll prove it. This is real gray in here.
Vivienne Stearns-Elliott 11:38
Yeah, your wife must be easy to live with because you don’t have much gray hair. I’m going
Nestor Aparicio 11:44
to text her that right now, vivid and I will. We’re here on behalf of our friends at the American Cancer Society and Hope Lodge. Hope Lodge is two blocks away. There’s a new one opening April 8. They’re having a groundbreaking. When will that? About a year to get that open, but this time next year?
Vivienne Stearns-Elliott 11:58
Yeah, you know, we don’t have a timetable set yet. We’re not locking in. But as
Nestor Aparicio 12:03
I always add progress, I’m an old entrepreneur. I’ve built things, yeah, at 90 days and
Vivienne Stearns-Elliott 12:08
basically, yeah. So far, we’re not predicting, but like, Will, it’ll be the teaspoon of
Nestor Aparicio 12:13
patience, you know, teaspoon of perspiration, you know, a little bit of that, right?
Vivienne Stearns-Elliott 12:17
That sounds good. And chocolate. Hope Lodge,
Nestor Aparicio 12:20
as you mentioned, there several dozen most major cities in America, international American Cancer societies. I’m sure it’s the American Well,
Vivienne Stearns-Elliott 12:29
we have one in Puerto Rico. There you go. Okay, yeah, let’s America. We have one in Hawaii, which is America. But yeah, they’re mostly major cities, places that you find major cancer centers that people are going to come to for the best possible treatment, for clinical trials, things like that. So we have them, New York, Philadelphia, actually, Burlington, because Burlington is very rural. It has wonderful Cancer Center. There people come from Maine and New Hampshire. I mean, there are some places in the country where people just, it’s not a matter of, oh, you know, I don’t think I want to go to my small town Cancer Center. I’d rather go to the city one. They actually don’t have a cancer center if they’re very rural, so they have to come several hours down to Burle. That’s
Nestor Aparicio 13:11
certainly something we saw at Hopkins in the two fights my wife had, was that people come from all over the world, to Baltimore, to Baltimore to be
Vivienne Stearns-Elliott 13:21
treated. Absolutely, absolutely. I met a man from Jamaica, Santa Domingo, Mexico.
Nestor Aparicio 13:29
Cancer has no borders. Yeah, no doubt about that. Very fortunate
Vivienne Stearns-Elliott 13:32
in this country to have such wonderful treatment. So I would say the majority are Americans that are coming to the Hope Lodges. But it is open to international patients, and we definitely get them. I think the one
Nestor Aparicio 13:43
thing I want to say before you depart here, we’re at Faith. Lisa Lexington market, so brought to my friends at the Maryland lottery. I have my my scratch offs. We’re going to be we’re going to be at Charles village pub next Friday, and we’re going to be at Pizza Johns on the 21st as well. Just cancer in our society, and it was a death sentence as a child, especially something like leukemia that, you know, Doctor shut the door and told my wife, you have leukemia. So worst kind you can have. She, we later learned it was 911 she was a 911 first responder from the from the air. Yeah, that’s, that’s how my wife got cancer, for sure. So twice, and a man in Germany has saved her life twice. I think of all of the people, research money, doctors, schools, laboratory animals that were, you know, over the course of years, that created something to save my wife’s life. We’re 12 years further along now, and I think the treatments are even better. Every day we’re getting better treating most of these cancers.
Vivienne Stearns-Elliott 14:44
8They’re targeted cancer treatments. We have put the American Cancer Society has funded more than 5 billion, million B billion dollars worth of cancer research, and we specialize in funding very early research. With researchers that look very promising, who are on the cutting edge, who are looking for new treatments, new ways of detection, new trends in predicting, you know, who might get cancer, who might not get cancer, and what the effect socioeconomically is on them, just all these cutting edge things. And we are very good at honing in on those researchers that have promised because 51 of them now have gone on to win Nobel prizes that got early research grants from us during their careers, so the public, the community, can feel very confident when they make a donation to the American Cancer Society that that donation is going to be used wisely. But we also have free services, and we have an 800 number that you can call 24/7, if you are in the middle of the night having a panic attack because of cancer diagnosis in your family, you can call our 800-227-2345 number, and someone will talk to you. You can get a live person to chat and chat through what you’re going through and the questions that you may have, they will do. Well, that was
Nestor Aparicio 16:05
a day now, vivid, you know, we were over at Hopkins, yeah. And they came into five at night and they said, You got leukemia, it’s the worst kind. And they left a binder. They dropped the binder on the table, yeah, and my wife had Wi Fi, wow. What is leukemia? Right? What, you know, like, yeah, what? What’s my chance of living? You know, these are first, quite like, the minute it happens, and that information that’s out there, and resources, and the things that go on in these hospitals are, it’s a miracle work. It’s changed my life. It’s reason I’m here talking about this instead of talking about the Orioles and the Ravens. All Day talk plenty about that, especially the Justin Tucker thing, and opening day I’m on all of that, but there’s still, it’s a big world. There’s a lot going on. And this is a place where we say, is the world getting better? Is it getting worse? Well, it depends on which day and how the presidential press conference goes, right, but this is a place where we are getting better, like as a society, at treating cancer, at identifying it. I, you know, I think that the surround services and surround things to help survivors like my wife, American Cancer Society is on the front of this. I know that.
Vivienne Stearns-Elliott 17:13
Thank you. That’s true. We appreciate that, well, more than 2 million people will get a new cancer diagnosis this year in the United States alone. So the number everybody knows, everybody, everybody, the numbers are going up. But the other news is that the mortality is going down. The death rates are going down. And as you said, there’s so much cutting edge research being done. There are new treatments coming up all the time. Clinical trials are very important. We can connect people. We now have a clinical trial matching service that we’re debuting. So if you’re looking for a clinical trial across the country, you’ve gotten to a point that you think that that’s the right thing for your treatment, or your doctor does, you can call our 800 number and we will help you try to find the right clinical trial across the country. And then you know, if you have to travel, and there’s a Hope Lodge nearby. We could accommodate the patient at a Hope Lodge so that they don’t have that big bill of the hotel stay, or the apartment stay, something like
Nestor Aparicio 18:10
that. Anybody wants to chip in down here at the Hope Lodge, two blocks away from Lexington market, vivid, I’ll be glad to take you on down at the Hope Lodge and help you. American Cancer Society tell folks how to get in touch locally. Given the phone number cancer.org is the way to do that. But you do have a local office. You also have local things going on here, these great events that people can find on the internet
Vivienne Stearns-Elliott 18:30
and participate absolutely so our Relay for Life takes care of all cancers. It tries to conquer all cancers. We have everybody. They could be pancreatic, colorectal, breast, lung, whatever, participating and celebrating their survivors and their family and fighting forward. And you can go to Relay for life.org. On the internet, find a relay near you. The other thing is, our breast cancer events are just incredibly uplifting and a celebration of life and promise and hope, and those are in the fall go to Making Strides Against Breast Cancer, and you’ll find one near you. And then we have events that are like galas and parties and fundraisers and such. So you
Nestor Aparicio 19:13
saw my jacket, right? So tonight’s the addies downtown here. So, I mean, I didn’t even give you the full the full thing here, so I’m getting cleaned I think it may this may well, this wasn’t the jacket I think I wore the night that I was with. Maybe it was. I better look. No. I mean, what did I wear that night? Hold on, I I just looked up the picture of me and Michelle model, and that incredible. Is the butterfly mural up right this minute? Or is it going up? It is in a great room. So I had a good jacket that day, but it was, it wasn’t this jacket. So there’s, there’s Michelle and I, and there’s her incredible butterfly, and there’s my jacket. Michelle looks way prettier than I do, but yeah, so there. Okay, so I did not wear, I didn’t wear my Oscar’s jacket. Get fixing myself up here. Real good. Okay, I’m not even operating like I let my hair down. Close my kitty cat, she got all over.
Vivienne Stearns-Elliott 20:08
You have nothing there. I was just teasing you. I’m the one with dog hair. I just adopted a dog last week. What kind this is a mini golden doodle. A gal was going into the military, and she couldn’t keep her dog. We already have a doodle, so now we have two. You love the new one,
Nestor Aparicio 20:25
yeah? Like, you know, there’s a little
Vivienne Stearns-Elliott 20:27
getting to know you period Exactly, yeah, exactly, yeah. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 20:31
we love our kitty cat, so except when she I wear her to galas and whatnot, you look great. I let my hair out. I’m gonna do my hair up real nice. We’re down here failies. I’m gonna have a crab cake and then do my hair up nice. I might even have some muscles today, because she’s been threatening me with some steam muscles down here, as well as some char grilled oysters. So I probably could do some of that stuff. So I brought you, my friends at the Maryland lottery, the magic eight ball. You rub it, you win. It is the lucky magic eight ball brought to you by the Maryland lottery. It’s the Maryland crab cake tour and a cup of Super Bowl. We’re down here failies, taking care of nice folks like the American Cancer Society. My friend vivid Stearns Elliot for stopping by and let me know when your big hoot nanny is in fall, because if I’m not gonna emcee it and come cry, I’ll come. You guys had just come enjoy listen, you had something that night that I’m still talking about. You had a mashed potato bar. You remember this? Everybody
Vivienne Stearns-Elliott 21:21
loved that. That was so good, Raul, I
Nestor Aparicio 21:25
know you. Raul freeville, who’s he’s done an event for me a million years ago. I went to the event. I saw Lana Caden there. I’m looking around, and I’m like, they had a mashed potato bar. I mean, that is,
Vivienne Stearns-Elliott 21:38
oh, you could put everything, I mean corn and gravy or vegetables or butter or cheese. Yeah, that’s right,
Nestor Aparicio 21:45
chive, sour cream, bacon. Let’s keep going. Well, you know,
Vivienne Stearns-Elliott 21:49
just being here at failies makes you hungry, so you’re really doing a good job on me. He had
Nestor Aparicio 21:54
a mashed potato bar. Remember, I do the mashed potato I do twist. All right, we’re here failies. I am Nestor. We are W, N, S, D. Am 50. 70 Towson, Baltimore, doing good things in the American Cancer Society. Stay with us. We’re Baltimore positive. Thank you.
