Cancer Support Community’s Lafayette expansion reflects a different approach to recovery care ...Middle East

LAFAYETTE — Dexter Louie gets emotional thinking about the immediate sense of calm he felt visiting the Cancer Support Community for the first time, prodded by his wife and adult children who found the center in a desperate bid to keep him alive.

After decades working as a head and neck cancer surgeon near his childhood home in San Francisco’s Chinatown, Louie was forced into the role of patient – retiring after being diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer that required intensive chemotherapy that nearly killed him halfway through treatment.

Grateful for the connection and relationships that helped lift him through depression, he now offers his medical expertise to fellow cancer survivors and their families through the Cancer Support Community San Francisco Bay Area — his way of giving back and ensuring others also have the same opportunities to find community.

“Having been a cancer surgeon, and now on the other side, I understand what they do to support you and how important it is,” Louie said. Now seven years into remission, the 83-year-old credits a large source of his health to CSC, where he’s attended group counseling sessions since 2018. “I’m a participant, but I try to clarify things — it’s so easy to get confused, trying to understand what all the doctors and oncologists are saying.”

Golden shovels ceremoniously broke ground this week on the Cancer Support Community’s long-planned $30 million expansion project, where thousands of cancer patients, survivors, loved ones and caretakers hope to soon find community in the largest, most advanced support center of its kind in the western United States.

It’s a monumental move for the nonprofit, which has eyed the six-acre property just north of Lafayette Reservoir for more than a decade. Plans to build a 12,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art building in the rolling hills off Highway 24 would nearly double the size of the group’s current space in Walnut Creek, which provides counseling, support groups, nutrition and exercise classes, emergency financial assistance and patient education workshops to anyone impacted by cancer.

Whether it’s cooking or yoga or line dancing, CEO Lucinda Bazile, who joined the organization in February, said these programs help people deal with the psychosocial and mental health aspects of treatment and recovery – a focus that helps uplift and strengthen participants during and after treatment.

“After you hear that diagnosis, there’s a chaos of feelings and emotions that come with that,” Bazile said ahead of Wednesday’s groundbreaking, explaining how non-medical care can help increase chances of survival, reduce recurrences and boost overall quality of life. “We’re trying to provide services that keep you from not being isolated, encouraging you to still participate despite the diagnosis.”

In addition to natural open spaces and walking trails, the new campus will have the capacity to offer more concurrent programs, including new resources designed for children, teens and young families, as well as improved remote broadcast options that bloomed during the pandemic, but also continue to connect people who may be physically isolated while undergoing treatment.

Construction crews said the project is on track to be completed within the next 18 months – nearly seven years after the land was donated by Ray and Angelina Leal, family of the dairy farmer who previously owned the land.

Once CSC opens its doors at 3939 Mount Diablo Blvd., the campus will fulfill the nonprofit’s campaign to be “rooted in resilience,” according to the nonprofit’s directory of philanthropy, Libby Eppinga; the address is “angel number” specifically chosen by former CEO James Bouquin when they acquired the land, which signifies new beginnings, embracing endings and manifesting new opportunities.

With Bazile now leading the 35-year-old organization at a transformative time, she said there’s one core feature of CSC that will never change: all of the programs and services are provided free of charge.

That’s why the nonprofit announced its very first capital campaign while kicking off construction Wednesday.

Bazile said the Cancer Support Community boasts a mix of foundational funders, large donors and small contributions towards its new campus. While CSC was still $2.6 million short of that goal as ground broke in Lafayette, Bazile said every dollar donated will now be doubled, thanks to a $5 million match gifted by an anonymous donor.

As the Trump administration continues to curb federal funding for medical research and health services – despite rising cancer rates among young people – Bazile said CSC’s expansion is vital for CSC to expand opportunities for people impacted by cancer across the region.

In total, roughly 200 people climbed the undeveloped hill for Wednesday’s groundbreaking – where CSC executives, board members, elected officials and community leaders took turns recounting the project’s journey and successes – feats echoed by elected officials, business leaders and local physicians who work with the cancer center.

Virtually everyone who spoke had been touched by cancer, whether through family, friends or their own lives.

Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, a survivor of stage-four lymphocytic leukemia, said he’s intimately aware of the benefits of personalized, holistic cancer care.

“I’ve had a series of treatments, and I have pills in my pocket that keep me alive every day,” DeSaulnier said, recounting stories from physicians that his best prognosis, had he been diagnosed a few years prior, may have been “Holy Water and luck.” While that scientific progress was largely driven by taxpayer-funded research and organizations like the American Cancer Institute, he said “it was the support community that healed me.”

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