Abstract C93: LUNA: Latinos United for a New Awakening

LUNA is a nonprofit organization created by a breast cancer survivor approximately 10 years ago when she found herself navigating the oncology system on her own and in a language that was not her primary one. LUNA stand for Latinos United for a New Awakening and represents what every Latino survivor expresses when given the remission diagnosis after her cancer treatment is completed and is filled with so many uncertainties and hope. LUNA started offering a support/social group where women in particular gather to support each other as they went through their cancer treatments. Soon after, word of mouth brought more women and their relatives with other challenges that LUNA decided to tackle-in as the opportunities presented themselves. With the generous assistance of in-kind sponsorship from organizations such as Moffitt Cancer Center, Cultural Dynamics Specialist, LLS, TBCCN and Morton Plan Hospital, LUNA is recognized as the leading agency of its kind. Two other support groups in two different counties have been added to the list of our programs including as our newest addition. All of our services are free to our clients and offered in Spanish and LUNA is fully run by volunteers. This makes this organization extremely unique. Every year we service approximately 25 women and in the last 6 years we have educated and offered support of some kind to over 400 Latino women.

LUNA's mission is to provide emotional support and health education to cancer survivors from the Latin communities of West Central Florida. LUNA seeks to fill an unmet need in our community, that is provision of support, education, memorable culturally relevant social events, and outreach for cancer Latino cancer survivors/patients, their relatives and friends.

Citation Format: Viviam Sifontes. LUNA: Latinos United for a New Awakening. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Eighth AACR Conference on The Science of Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; Nov 13-16, 2015; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2016;25(3 Suppl):Abstract nr C93.