Canopy Cancer Care say that taking time out and enjoying the small things with your family and close friends can help centre you when you need it the most. With this in mind, founder Ronde Amende created a charity in 2016 to help connect terminal patients with somewhere to stay when they needed a break.
The TimeOut Charity is a not for profit organisation providing people with life-threatening illnesses, access to holiday homes and baches around New Zealand. These TimeOuts enable a family or group of friends the chance to relax, reconnect and create lasting memories.
The TimeOut Charity is dedicated to providing a national network of holiday homes at no cost to these families, and continue to work hard to further grow our database of holiday houses. The holiday homes are available to those with life-threatening illnesses (terminal diagnosis). For those who fit the criteria, they simply need to fill out a request from on the TimeOut website.
Every year, more than 24,000 people and their families experience terminal illness in New Zealand. Beyond the immense grief and emotional toll these illnesses take on all they affect, they also impact our most precious resource; time. By gifting experiences away from home, TimeOut provides families with much-needed moments of relief, shared experiences and the opportunity to take a break from it all, spending time together.
The team at Canopy Cancer Care encourage patients to utilise supportive organisations such as TimeOut, due to the very obvious psycho-social benefits. Having access to a service like TimeOut provides respite to families at a time when they are often overwhelmed.
Being able to step outside your normal home or hospital environment and have a chance to create amazing family memories for your loved ones is not to be underestimated. The gift of time that so many of us take for granted is not always available to patients during their cancer journey.
A Canopy patient recently sent this feedback, “We would like to say a massive thank you to the homeowner for letting us stay in her unit in Snells Beach on the waterfront! It was an amazing spot by the beach and we made heaps of lovely memories and visited beautiful beaches we had never been to. Thank you so much for making the holiday possible for us!!”
To find out more about functional oncology, cancer clinics and cancer treatments please go to http://www.canopycancercare.co.nz .
