The social distancing required by the COVID pandemic hasn’t stopped S.L.E.W. Cancer Wellness Center from serving its clientele of uninsured, underinsured and low-income women being treated for cancer. S.L.E.W. (Support Lending for Emotional Well-Being) received a $100,000 High Impact Grant in 2015 from Impact San Antonio to move to a larger headquarters and improve services.
The services offered by S.L.E.W. Cancer Wellness Center have traditionally been offered face-to-face at its headquarters on the Northeast Side. When the COVID pandemic kicked in last spring, however, staff had to find a way to offer as many of those services as possible while still observing social distancing. They’ve done an efficient job of transitioning most of their services to online and telephone delivery.
“We are still doing what we do best, just in a modified way,” said Olga Young, who founded the agency in 2003 and is its executive director. “We’re having to be a little creative.”
S.L.E.W. (Support Lending for Emotional Well-Being) received a $100,000 High Impact Grant in 2015 from Impact San Antonio to move to a larger headquarters building at 12525 Nacogdoches Road and expand their services. They were able to offer free wigs and prosthetics, counseling, physical therapy, massage therapy including lymphatic drainage, patient advocacy, nutrition and diet counseling, benefits counseling, exercise classes and emergency financial assistance.
Most of those services are still available, either on the phone, online or in a room at their headquarters that has been set up for social distancing. Physical therapy, massage, exercise classes and lymphatic drainage therapy are not being offered right now, but Young said they hope to restart lymphatic therapy by the end of July.
Providing economic aid to their clients is a major focus right now, she said.
“We are giving out H-E-B gift cards to our clients so they can go to the store and get what they need,” she said. “When there was that situation a couple of months back with the (San Antonio Food Bank) lines being so long, our clients were too weak and vulnerable to wait in a line three or four hours. We went to a couple of our vendors and asked if they could do an emergency relief program for us so we could get the gift cards.”
Wigs and prosthetics are still being provided, but only to repeat clients, Young said. “We don’t want them to be trying them on, but if we know their prosthetic or bra size or the kind of wig they like, they can just come in and pick them up.”
Their overall clientele — 700 in 2019 — is about the same, she said. Requests for physical and massage therapy are down, but more people are applying for emergency assistance for such expenses as utility bills.
There is also an increase in requests for counseling because “a lot of our clients are lonely,” she said. “We are making sure to touch base with our critical (level) clients on a regular basis.
“We want to be at least one of their contacts with the outside world so they know they are not alone or forgotten.”
(210) 654-7900 slewwellness.org
