LAURA’S JOURNEY TRAVEL PROGRAM
YES YOU CAN AND SHOULD GET AWAY
The raffle drawings have become highly anticipated events in 11G, as patients wait to hear their names drawn for trips that have included one-week cruises to various parts of the Caribbean, the Bahamas, Bermuda, and New England/Canada; a one-week trip to Athens, Greece; one-week stays in Merritt Island and Palm Beach Shores, Fla.; and weekend getaways to the Berkshire Mountains in Massachusetts and Atlantic City. Entrants need not be present to win.
In addition to the free trips, the program offers live and online travel advice for patients or their significant others. Based on their experiences, our volunteers share their recommendations for places patients can comfortably visit while undergoing treatment, while also passing on tips to make their journeys more pleasant, affordable and less stressful.
Through the generosity of private donors and the travel industry, Laura’s Journeys has now awarded nearly 25 vacations and weekend getaways to chemotherapy and radiation therapy patients through free drawings held in Roosevelt Hospital’s Infusion Suite (11G).
Established in fall 2009 in loving memory of Laura Parness, ‘Laura’s Journeys’ is a support program for cancer patients at Mount Sinai Roosevelt Cancer Center in New York. The program is specifically designed to encourage and facilitate recreational travel for the patient along with their spouse/partner or other family members/friends.
A Note from Bill Parness, on why he created Laura’s Journeys:
Laura’s Journeys has its genesis in the extensive travels my loving wife and I enjoyed during the six years she was being treated for advanced breast cancer. The six years leading up to Laura’s tragic passing in November 2008 were among the best in a storybook 34-year marriage. And, without question, our journeys helped make those years so magical.
While every patient’s disease and treatment plan is different, our underlying message is: Yes, you can and should make the effort to get away!!!
Whether a weekend getaway to Atlantic City or a two-week trip to French Polynesia, these travels gave Laura and me something to look forward to, providing a vital psychological lift from the day-to-day issues associated with her disease. Laura came back refreshed and ready to tackle the next treatment. Beyond these benefits, the trips brought us even closer as a couple, as we lived out the dreams of empty-nesters. In establishing Laura’s Journeys, my foremost objective was to encourage other cancer patients to reap the rich rewards that weekend getaways or more extensive trips can bring.
Donate Travel
Time Shares, vacation homes, air Miles, etc. can be donated, and you may also volunteer assisting a winning patient with travel planning.
9 Justice Lane, Aberdeen, NJ 07747
Bill Parness, Founder and Director
Mount Sinai West Hospital Center C/O Dr. Gabriel Sara Division of Hematology & Oncology 1000 10th Avenue New York, NY 10019
