Founder Clare Spillane Weaver with her children Hannah and Zeth.
The Wellness Community’s story starts with a young woman, Clare Spillane Weaver, who was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer at the age of 32. The mother of a toddler, she was pregnant with her second child when she noticed a lump on her breast. Because she was young and in good health, with no history of breast disease, her doctors assured her that nothing was wrong. When the lump grew quickly, she had a biopsy and was diagnosed with a rare and virulent type of breast cancer.
Her life fell apart with her cancer diagnosis.
Like all cancer patients, Clare was asked to absorb complicated information and to quickly make difficult decisions. She was advised by her doctors to abort her unborn child to save her own life. Clare was terrified and devastated. She gathered all her inner resources, called physicians with expertise on pregnancy and cancer treatment and made a decision. She would fight to save her own life and that of her unborn daughter.
The Eastern Shore is a rural area, with a long history of neighbors helping neighbors. When other young women who were members of the Salisbury Junior Service League heard about Clare’s situation, they rallied around her and her family, cooking daily meals, and helping with childcare and other household tasks.
Another group of young women, all fighting cancer, also joined her, forming an informal support group.
Clare’s recovery is a remarkable story, one that she freely shares with others. The Eastern Shore has one of the highest cancer rates in the country and yet there was no organized system of support or education for local people fighting cancer.
Clare understood that a key to her survival was the support she got from her family, her friends and her community. She understood that she wouldn’t have had the inner strength to fight for her life without that support. She wanted to make sure that others fighting cancer would have the support they needed to fight, and the information they needed to make the decisions that were right for them.
Clare joined the Salisbury Junior Service League and together they decided to start an organization that would assure that no one on the Shore would face cancer alone. She motivated other community leaders and cancer survivors to join the Board of Directors.
The founders investigated existing models of delivering psycho-social services to cancer patients and discovered The Wellness Community. In 1998, The Wellness Community-Delmarva received its charter. The Board and volunteers continued to raise money, and in 2000 hired the first Executive Director. In 2001, TWC-Delmarva began providing support services to cancer patients and their families.
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