Our Mission
Women’s Cancer Resource Center improves equitable access to cancer information, support and care.
About Us
Women’s Cancer Resource Center helps individuals with cancer improve their quality of life through education, supportive services, and practical assistance. We help individuals from various backgrounds and cultures navigate through the often overwhelming health care system to get the appropriate care and treatment they need.
All of our programs and services are free.
What is WCRC?
Vision and Values
We envision a world in which all individuals with cancer receive medical care, education and support, enabling them to survive, thrive and advocate for the changes needed to achieve a cancer-free society.
WCRC is a learning organization committed to providing client-centered, compassionate, accessible services in a supportive and inclusive environment. We will infuse cultural humility principles and practices into all levels of our work.
Cultural humility is a path to equity. It incorporates a lifelong commitment to self-awareness and mindful evaluation in order to redress power imbalances and to develop mutually-beneficial relationships. This work happens at the individual, community and organizational levels.
“Cultural Humility” is based on the work of Dr. Melanie Tervalon and Dr. Jann Murray-Garcia. Read their article here.
History
In 1986, a small group of women with cancer founded Women’s Cancer Resource Center to provide direct services to women with cancer, and to advocate for changes in the health care system. For the first two years, WCRC was simply an answering machine in founder Jackie Winnow’s living room. As word spread of WCRC’s existence, our founders recognized that they had struck a chord in the community.
What began as a group of volunteers has now grown to a staff of thirteen and a core group of nearly 200 active volunteers, providing extensive services to women with cancer and their loved ones. While our primary focus is still women with cancer, we have expanded to provide wellness programs for everyone, regardless of gender.
How we serve our clients
We provide information on cancer prevention and early detection.
We help clients cope with the disease and treatment, as well as the challenges of caring for someone with cancer.
We serve people with any cancer from all backgrounds, economic abilities, sexual and gender orientations and expressions, and ethnicities.
Our clients include people with new diagnoses, in remission/survivorship, living with metastatic disease, and those receiving end of life care.
We primarily serve women with cancer, but many of our wellness programs are available to everyone, regardless of gender, and whether or not they have cancer.
Want to visit us?
Women’s Cancer Resource Center is located in Berkeley in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. While we primarily serve people in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties, we have integrated Zoom and telehealth into our service delivery, making us accessible to anyone, anywhere.