Nonprofit cancer center to host social

The Ida Mae Center was born out of loss.

Vernadine Richardson and Bernette Mundy watched their mother, Ida Mae, suffer for two years before losing her struggle with laryngeal cancer in 1987.

“It’s been a long time, but I still feel the hurt and the pain,” Richardson said. “We watched her suffer. It took its toll on us, and we saw other people suffering — not just the cancer patient but the family.”

As a result of that experience, Richardson founded the center as a place where cancer patients, survivors and their loved ones could go to feel comfortable and to find peace.

As a career fitness professional. she had already founded Corporate Wellness and Yoga in 2004. She believed she could take additional training and receive the certifications needed to establish programs geared toward alternative cancer therapy.

“I was determined to honor our mother by making a difference, and my vision for The Ida Mae Center was created,” she said. “I thought it was a gift from God. He wanted me to help the community.”

On Saturday, The Ida Mae Center, Inc. will host its first social to introduce the newly established nonprofit to the community. The social will be held at its offices inside Valencia Park Executive Offices (across from Fire Station No. 3) at 200 Valencia Drive, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

The center will offer alternative cancer wellness therapy programs, including music therapy, non-medical holistic nutrition, stress management, yoga, Tai chi, bio feedback therapy and dance therapy.

Mundy, her sister, is a wellness nurse who teaches some of the classes and who serves on the board as vice president.

“This will be a place for rehabilitation after cancer therapy — a place to go to get back to life, to help cancer survivors, provide resources and a place they can come to get serenity and get back into life,” Mundy said. “This doesn’t take the place of a doctor; we will work hand in hand with their doctors. It just completes the picture by treating the whole person.”

 Complementary therapies that focus on the mind, body and spirit contribute to a person’s overall health and can boost the immune system’s ability to fight cancer, Richardson said.

“Our mission is to offer services that address the physical, emotional and social challenges for not only survivors, but for all who are involved with that survivor,” she said.

Based on condition and doctor referral, classes will be free for cancer clients and survivors. There are fees for family members and friends, said Richardson.

The 12 board members were chosen because they have either survived cancer or been touched by cancer. One of them, Marsha Robinson, met Richardson through Corporate Wellness and Yoga prior to her husband’s cancer diagnosis. Robinson said dance therapy helped her cope with her husband’s illness, so she advocates programs to help family members of cancer patients and survivors.

“After my husband was diagnosed and while my husband went through cancer (treatment) — for about a year and a half, my life came to a stop,” she said. “The dance therapy really helped me a lot, because it was a release.”

Robert Kimbrough, a member of the advisory board and 10-year prostate cancer survivor, said he believes in the concepts of the center because he knows what his family went through while he was in treatment.

“I had more support than they did,” he said. “Sometimes the family needs more help — when I was breaking down they had nowhere to go. That’s another reason why this center is so important, it will serve (the needs of the families) as well.”

For information on the center, call 910-353-6350.

Contact Suzanne Ulbrich at 910-219-8454 or sulbrich@freedomenc.com