Canopy Cancer Survivorship Center celebrates the holidays – and families – at Memorial Hermann - The Woodlands

THE WOODLANDS, TX – Canopy Cancer Survivorship Center recently celebrated its annual holiday party at its location inside Memorial Hermann Hospital - The Woodlands. Dozens of cancer survivors and their families attended the festive shindig, which included a full spread of delectable food, a fully stocked hot chocolate bar, and live music provided by Darryl Bayer and the Texas Brass section of The Woodlands Symphony Orchestra.

Woodlands Online caught up with three ladies who are integral for the daily operations of Canopy, a center for people undergoing cancer treatments and their families. All three were kind enough to sit down with us and talk about their relationships with Canopy.

Linda Nelson, director of business development, marketing, and community relations for Memorial Hermann - The Woodlands

We host the In the Pink of Health luncheon every year. We bring in a significant amount of money with this event, and we wanted to make sure it was still worthwhile to people to come to it and continue to give. So one day our chair was taking one of her neighbors who had cancer to another hospital and on the way down to the Medical Center when the discussion turned to, ‘I wish there was a cancer survivorship center like they had in Ohio.’ It was an easy jump to deciding that the next luncheon should fund this idea. I went to that place in Ohio, as well as the Patrick Dempsey Center in Maine, and came back realizing we could do it. We opened our doors in July of 2016. There was always the question of, ‘If we build it, will they come?’ Well, we built it and they certainly came.

When working on what Canopy should contain, we conducted focus groups with providers, caregivers, and patients, and all three said that it shouldn’t look like a hospital or clinic, that it has to be free for all, and that it doesn’t matter where you’re treated. And those became our marching orders, and from that we have this beautiful facility.


Marcella Herrera, program manager of Canopy

I came on board in June of this year and joined a rockstar team. My background is in program development and management; I worked in child welfare for twelve years and more recently as a program developer. I had this opportunity to apply as a volunteer manager, and here I am today with this phenomenal opportunity. I like to say Canopy was built by our community for our community, because so many different hands and organizations come together to make it work.

We are completely run on philanthropic dollars. We have several organizations that contribute, individual sponsors and donors, and income from our multiple events and fundraisers throughout the year to ensure that Canopy can continue to provide free care for our survivors and their support system. We are primarily volunteer led, with only three of us being employed by Memorial Hermann and the rest of the staff being driven by volunteers. Our instructors, our front desk support, our psychologists, certified hypnotists, teachers, and oncology nurses provide a variety of their talents and experience. We also have many cancer survivors as part of our volunteer team to give those one-on-one tips and feedback to help individuals through their cancer journey. I think one thing that’s so incredible about Canopy is that we have all of these diverse groups because cancer doesn’t discriminate. It affects every kind of population regardless of profession or socioeconomic status, and we want everyone to know that they’re welcome here from day one of diagnosis to post-treatment. We also welcome spouses, caregivers, and support systems to come through our doors because it takes a village.

We have such a compassionate, kindhearted community that has the ability to give back, as well as other entities and nonprofit organizations where we huddle together and support each other.

We do offer completely free services; we have more than thirty programs that provide 70-80 activities a month, including general exercise programs, social support, mental health therapy, pet therapy, and even a men’s group. Every single aspect of cancer care is covered here.


Kate Mahan, oncology social worker at Canopy

I started working with Canopy in 2019 and I was working with the cancer centers at that time. I've been an oncology social worker for about eleven years, and I came over to Canopy part time as we were starting to develop our emotional support services. We quickly learned we needed more than part time support as we were growing and the work was spreading, so I became full time later that year.

What we do when we’re here is to support anybody who is affected by cancer. We can offer counseling support for cancer survivors, their loved ones, their family members, and anyone else who’s part of their network. Sometimes we’re lucky to have family and friends to support us, but sometimes we need to create a new support network. A lot of clients with a limited support network can come here and find people they can talk with, people who can assist them, people who can help them to become stronger through exercise classes as they go through treatment, and more. There’s a holistic approach to the care and support that they get here.

We offer free wigs, breast prostheses, and post-mastectomy bra fittings, and more. For a lot of women, this can be very costly because their insurance won’t cover it.

Canopy supports you in so many ways; it gives you dignity, it gives you control, and that’s a wonderful thing to give back.

The Woodlands is a very special community, and if there’s another community willing to put forth the money along the lines that In the Pink has contributed – at least a couple of million dollars – and the volunteers, we’d be happy to show them how to do it.

Look at the people who are here today at this holiday party. Every one of them is going through the holidays either taking care of someone with cancer, or they have cancer themselves, and you can see them laughing and how joyful they are; it’s so heartwarming.