Portland PanCAN PurpleStride Chair Phil Belhumeur speaks with Community Engagement Coordinator Paula Mukherjee about his volunteer experiences, tips for PurpleStride success, and goals for PurpleStride 2023. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Paula: How did you first learn about PanCAN?

Phil: I learned about PanCAN basically by accident. I lost my wife about 10 years ago in August of 2012. My wife and I had volunteered for many years with ALS because we had a friend that was diagnosed. In 2014, I got a light bulb moment and said, “maybe there's an organization that deals with pancreatic cancer.” I did a Google search and found out that the local PanCAN affiliate was having a meeting the next week. I said, “Oh, I'll drop in and see what's going on.” It was just a great group of people; they were really enthusiastic. I joined as a general volunteer.

Paula: Can you tell me about your journey from general volunteer to PanCAN PurpleStride Chair?

Phil: Once I joined the group and got involved with them, I knew that I was going to probably be part of that group for the long term. We've had some changes as far as personnel, but everybody that's come in has been really supportive and great. When I first joined in 2014, I was still working. I didn't have the time to get as involved as I wanted to, but I kept promising everybody: “Once I retire, I'll get more involved.”

I finally did retire in 2019. The week after that, there happened to be this meeting where they were talking about the open positions. After the meeting, the Affiliate Chair came up to me and said, “Okay Phil, so what do you think? You said you’d get more involved when you're retired.” I said, “Hmm, I'm thinking Logistics Chair” and she said “Yeah, I think that’s it”, because my background is in retail. I was a retail manager for many years.

I took that position and was kind of the understudy to the PurpleStride Chair at the time, Rachel. She and I worked together on PanCAN PurpleStride 2019. She was a great mentor, and I learned a lot from her. Then she took a different job and stepped down from that role and the natural choice was me. I said, “No problem, I’ll step up and take care of that,” because we did a pretty good job. I was mainly organizing all the vendors in 2019.

Then, 2020 hit and we went virtual, and I have no background in technology, so I didn't know about Zoom or whatever. I sort of freaked out and went, “Uhm, I'm going to need help here.” Everybody stepped up and we managed to pull off a virtual walk in 2020.

Paula: It sounds like you have a really collaborative team in Portland.

Phil: We do. It’s a great team. Nobody worries about, “Hey, my job is this and I'm not going to do that.” If there's a need, everybody steps up and says, “Sure, I'll make some calls and talk to some sponsors.” It’s one of the things that just makes the group work.

In 2022, we went back to live and we had to change venues. It was great working with [logistics partner] Event360. They were awesome in terms of pulling everything together; logistically, it took a lot of pressure off me, and we could just focus on the quality of the walk. Everything seemed to work out. At this point, I've got a great team. We're looking to fill some committee positions that we’re getting ready for.

Paula: You’ve been involved with PanCAN in some capacity since 2014. What keeps you motivated as a volunteer?

Phil: When my wife was diagnosed in 2012, we had no clue about pancreatic cancer. We didn't have any idea what to do. We were with Kaiser and they assigned us to an oncologist who walked us through the options as far as chemo. It was too late for her, so she didn't have any radiation or surgery options. When I joined up with PanCAN, I wanted to try to make a difference - making sure that people didn't have to go through what we went through as far as just being totally in the dark, as far as what options are, getting good advice from researchers…pancreatic cancer is one of those ones that people don't think about until you're diagnosed.

Between 2014 when I joined and now, there's been incredible strides in terms of diagnostics, in terms of testing. There's a lot of work being done here locally in Portland at Oregon Health & Science University. There's the Knight Cancer Institute that is doing some really great research. My goal is to try to raise funds, to be able to continue to push that research, to advocate in Washington for additional research funds so that the advances that have been made can continue to grow. And of course, so we can increase the survival rate.

Paula: Absolutely. PanCAN affiliates have several chair positions and committee roles. What is special about being a PurpleStride Chair?

Phil: For me, it's right up my alley. I enjoy all the details of putting everything together, working with all the vendors and the location and the people. It's really rewarding when PurpleStride day comes and people show up, because you're wondering: are they actually going to come? In Portland, in April, the weather's kind of iffy. In fact, this year we had a huge rain downpour the day before and our new venue was mostly grass. The morning of the walk, we really quickly had to make some cones and put up some caution tape, so people didn't walk through the lakes that were created the night before. Despite that, we had an awesome turnout. We had 800 walkers signed up and we had about 600 or 700 show up.

It was really rewarding to see that and just the camaraderie and people getting together and seeing old friends, especially this year; people hadn't seen each other in three years. It was funny because I got to meet a few of our committee members in person, finally, because some people had joined within the last two years and all our meetings had been via Zoom.

The PanCAN PurpleStride Chair role just aligns with my skill set. It's just a lot of fun, too, even though it's crazy the last couple weeks, really putting all the final details together. It always comes together and it's a great event, so I enjoy it.

Paula: I'd love to explore the transition from in-person events to virtual events. How was that transition for you and for your affiliate?

Phil: Difficult! We don't have really anybody in our affiliate that's in media or very talented in terms of technology. We do have a fantastic media partner with one of the local television affiliates, Channel 2. They were great about working with us. For the last eight or nine years, they've been our MC at the live events. They have one on-air personality that's they’ve lost to pancreatic cancer, so they're very invested. As far as the virtual event, the on-air personality, Helen Raptis, was fantastic as far as putting together a little montage that we could include.

Our Portland Affiliate Chair - Helen Dillen - and I wrote the script, we went out to a park, we filmed the segments, we thanked all the sponsors.  One of our other members was able to cut and paste video clips, put it all together so that we were able to put together a virtual walk that was somewhat coherent. It worked out all right, but it was challenging for us. I'm really happy to be back live in person. For me, that’s a lot easier. Even though there's a lot of moving parts, it's a lot easier to make happen.

Paula: Totally. This has been the year of transitioning back to in-person PurpleStride events. How has that experience been?

Phil: Great, overall. The first challenge we ran across was that we had to change our venue because we changed dates. We ended up moving out towards the edge of town and we went to a racetrack, Portland International Raceway. It worked out fantastic. It had a lot more space. It had a lot more parking. It had a lot more room to spread the village out so that people could walk around. The walk route was really great; it was all paved and it ran along the racetrack. There was a race that day, so people could actually see the race. The vendors were really happy. It was a lot easier for the logistics company that supplied the tents and the stage to come out the day before, set up, drop off.

The in-person event transition for us was wonderful. All the people that attended really seemed to enjoy it. They had nothing but positive feedback on it. We're looking forward to using that venue now that we've gotten used to it.

Paula: Is your affiliate still doing virtual meetings or have those returned to being in-person as well?

Phil: We're transitioning back to in-person. We had an in-person meeting in June. In the summertime, especially now that the walk’s in April, we normally substitute one of our monthly affiliate meetings for a get-together. In June, our Survivor Chair coordinated a meet-and-greet with the survivors at a park in Portland. Then we're going to have an in-person get-together in September.

Paula: I want to dig in a bit more into strategies. Portland raised over $226,000 at PurpleStride. Congratulations! I'd love to hear more about the strategies that you and your committee used to get there. I know you surpassed your fundraising goal at 105% to goal.

Phil: We were proud of that, especially coming out of COVID. For 2022, one of our aims was to cultivate more sponsors. We had a couple of really strong sponsors in the healthcare field. Oregon Health & Sciences University has been a great partner with us. But most of our sponsors were in the healthcare field. We said, “Hey, there's a lot of people out there that have been affected by pancreatic cancer.” We were intentional and said, “Let's find two or three new sponsors that we can get in there at the Bronze or maybe Silver level and help to bolster the fundraisers.”

We were able to do that and that helped. Then also one of our teams - Suzie Fisher's team, she's a survivor. She went crazy in terms of putting together a fantastic team. She had a hundred walkers on her team alone and they raised $30,000. Those two factors really helped us to meet our goal.

We were just having a conversation with our CRM [Community Relationship Manager] this week. We decided in 2023, we're going to focus on cultivating our teams. We had about 85 teams registered, but we didn't have as many raising the kinds of money that they could raise if all they did was go out and just ask a few friends for 20 bucks. There's a lot of different, small steps that each affiliate can take to make a big difference in the total fundraising dollars.

Paula: What do you focus on in the off-season, now that PurpleStride is over?

Phil: Well in May, I focused on resting! Honestly, what we focus on in the off-season is recruitment. We've had a couple of meetings where we've looked at the people that are currently involved and say, “Are they in the right position? Do they have more of a passion for this position than that position?” Maybe somebody was working with sponsors, but they really have a passion for teams. We had a lot of people that came up at PurpleStride and said, “Hey, I really would like to get involved.”
 
We focus on recruitment and trying to get everybody in the right positions, get them some training before crunch time hits so that they can start early. I’ve found that the earlier you start, the less pressure there is. Also, we use that time to build a relationship within our affiliate team by getting together and having some social events so that everybody can get to know each other.

Paula: It sounds like there's not really an off-season then!

Phil: There's always something to do. Some times of the year are more concentrated than others, but there's always prep work that can be done. When we get to February, March and April and the crunch time comes, that just makes it that much easier because the ground's already been cultivated. It makes it easier to plant.

Paula: Definitely. What advice would you give to those who are new to the pancreatic cancer community?

Phil: My first thing would be to reach out to PanCAN as an organization. Information is power. Back in 2012, we had zero information. We had no idea what was going on. My wife only lasted six months; we didn't have time to do a lot of in-depth research. PanCAN has already done all that. Anybody that's diagnosed should definitely reach out to PanCAN Patient Services. They're a fantastic resource for information on the disease, what to expect, clinical trials, different treatment options, and the different providers that are in a particular area.

The second recommendation is: surround yourself with positive people and have hope, because there's a lot more encouragement in 2022 than there was even four, five years ago or 10 years ago in terms of being able to fight this disease and be a longer-term survivor. We went from a 5% survival rate to 11%; still too low, but if we can get to 20% by 2030—which is what PanCAN’s goal is—then that really means that pancreatic cancer is not a death sentence like it used to be and people can have a good quality of life and enjoy their family and their life. Those are the things that I would say: have hope and let PanCAN be a resource to give you that hope.

Paula: Love that. One final question. What guidance do you want to share with fellow volunteers, especially people who are new to volunteering?

Phil: One reservation that I had, and I think a lot of people have—not only with PanCAN—is that whenever I think about stepping into a role and volunteering, I'm always concerned I'm going to get sucked in way more than I want. With PanCAN, even a little bit of assistance helps a lot. If you've been touched by pancreatic cancer, hopefully you have a heart for the mission of PanCAN and want to help in some way. There's a lot of ways that you can get involved at your speed and then you can decide to become more involved, whether you want to become an Affiliate Chair or a PurpleStride Chair or want to be a general volunteer or just help at PurpleStride. There are lots of ways to get involved and incorporate it into your busy life.

If you're thinking about volunteering, go to an affiliate meeting and just see the people and see what's going on in your affiliate. Hopefully it'll be encouraging enough that you'll want to dip your toe in the water and get involved and help out, because every little bit helps.

Paula: Agreed! Thank you so much for your time today and thank you for everything that you've done and continue to do for PanCAN.