Hope Lodge Communities Provide a Place to Stay When Cancer Treatment is Far From Home
Pursuing necessary treatment for cancer takes patients hundreds of miles from home. Hope Lodge ensures these necessary – but often not insurance-eligible – expenses don't pile up.
By Marisa Iallonardo
After receiving six rounds of chemotherapy and undergoing a double mastectomy, 34-year-old Samantha Scoblink — who was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer earlier this year — was told by doctors that the next best step in her treatment would be proton therapy, a type of radiation therapy that directly targets tumors. The treatment, which she’d need to undergo every weekday for three straight weeks, was promising. It would also be administered at Roberts Proton Therapy Center (part of Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center) in Philadelphia — a two-and-a-half hour drive each way from Scoblink’s home in Berwick, Pennsylvania.
The situation was similar for Karen Dern, who was facing a two-hour daily drive from her home in Delaware to the Maryland Proton Treatment Center in Baltimore, where she, too, would be receiving proton therapy to treat her metastatic breast cancer. (Even if she stayed with her son in Maryland, she was still looking at almost an hour in the car every day.)
When Dern, 68, was first diagnosed with stage 3 inflammatory breast cancer two years ago, she stayed with friends in Silver Spring, Maryland, and was able to drive herself to daily radiation treatments, which were in Washington, D.C. Then, in March 2022, she received that her cancer had metastasized— and soon learned she would require a second, six-and-a-half-week round of the radiation treatment, this time in Baltimore.
As Dern told the concierge services coordinator at the Proton Treatment Center, she didn’t know how she was going to make the drive. The grandmother of seven worried about the traffic, being late for treatments, and how stressful the commute would be — during an already stressful time. Plus, staying at a hotel for more than six weeks would cost thousands of dollars, not including food and parking.
The solution for both Dern and Scoblink: the American Cancer Society Hope Lodge® program. With housing facilities located throughout the US, including locations in both Philadelphia and Baltimore, the program provides a home away from home for people with cancer and their caregivers, completely free of charge and close to where they’re receiving treatment. In 2019 alone, Hope Lodge communities provided guests with 500,000 free nights of lodging, saving these families $50 million in hotel costs. Like other American Cancer Society (ACS) services that support people with cancer and their families, Hope Lodge is made possible through donations to ACS.
“Hope Lodge was that piece of the puzzle that just fell right into place that I needed for part of my journey,” says Scoblink.
Easing Stress and Providing Community
The first Hope Lodge facility opened in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1970, and there are now more than 30 locations in cities like Boston, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Dallas, and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Each stand-alone Hope Lodge community exclusively hosts cancer patients (and their caregivers) who live more than 40 miles from where they’re receiving treatment. And though each facility is different — the number of guest rooms varies, for example — they all offer 24/7 staff, as well as volunteers and a wide variety of services and amenities from a library to outdoor spaces to a large, fully-equipped kitchen.
For Dern, who stayed at Hope Lodge Baltimore, the communal kitchen with its multiple cooking areas (four stoves, four microwaves) was appreciated because it allowed her to continue on the holistic, whole-foods diet she had switched to after her first experience with cancer — something that would have been much more difficult to do if staying at a hotel.
Scoblink, too, noted the benefits of the kitchen area at Hope Lodge Philadelphia, both for the socialization it provided and the home-cooked meals: volunteers regularly came in to cook meals for residents. On those days, she and her husband, who was staying with her as her caregiver, didn’t have to worry about what to make or eat for dinner.
The Scoblinks also found the guest room setup to be helpful. Rooms typically include two full beds, a bathroom, TV, and desk, which was key for Scoblink and her husband. He worked remotely throughout their stay, while she, a marketing development coordinator for a women’s shelter, aimed to work whenever she felt up to it. For Scoblink, whose skin within the radiation treatment area was raw and sensitive from treatment, having that extra bed and space allowed her to stretch out and feel more comfortable.
Dern says another benefit she appreciated during her stay at Hope Lodge Baltimore was the shuttle service that took her to and from appointments. Dern was especially grateful for the transport towards the end of her treatment when, just as Scobolink experienced, the higher dose of radiation she received made her skin in that area raw and made driving much tougher.
Along with this series of welcomed amenities, Dern’s Hope Lodge experience also provided something equally important: community.
“I really liked meeting the other guests staying at Hope Lodge,” says Scoblink, who found that hearing others' stories and experiences helped her feel less alone. “Seeing other people going through similar situations as me was really encouraging.”
For Dern, her stay at Hope Lodge offered her the chance to concentrate on healing. “I was able to have peace of mind, which is paramount to me,” she says. “They say you should try to stay as stress-free as possible when you’re diagnosed with cancer.” Freed from some of the burdens of everyday tasks, as well as worrying about how to get to treatment, Dern was able to do just that. She reflects, “The peace, the quiet, the amenities, the people — you couldn’t ask for a better place.”
Today, both women have completed proton therapy and continue on their individual cancer journeys. “I don’t know what my future holds,” says Dern. But, she says: “In my future, if it means more treatment, I know where I can go.”
Services like free stays at a Hope Lodge community are made possible through donations to the American Cancer Society. A contribution of $65 provides a night of free lodging, helping us ensure every person has the opportunity to treat and survive their cancer. Donate today! Your contribution could be the reason people with cancer and their caregivers have a free, supportive, convenient place to stay when treatment is far from home.