Newsletter February 2008

Hi Everyone,

Happy New Year! It's been a while since our last newsletter, so it\s high time for an update. 2007 was a quiet year for us, but active nevertheless.

Highlights:

• Major new donations
• Securing exercise vouchers from San Francisco Bay Club for low-income cancer patients to receive help
• In the process of acquiring pro bono legal counsel
• The book – promote online with liability, purpose and limitations now
• The book is fully available on the website!
• Book objectives have shifted toward new goals too
• What’s coming up in 2008

First, we’ve had some major donations roll into the non-profit, starting in the second half of 2007. Sadly, one of the patients who worked with Regan, one of our Sunflower board members and personal fitness trainer extraordinaire, passed away this year. According to Regan, Jimmy was beloved by nearly everyone he came into contact with. His wife, Linda, followed his wishes by earmarking funds to benefit other cancer patients, emphasizing that friends, family and patients contribute along with them. The result has been a series of major donations to Sunflower Wellness in the past several months. We are inspired by this series of gracious acts and deeply grateful for these donations.

We have begun to use those funds to reimburse various non-medical providers who work with Regan in the participating oncology office at UC San Francisco, including a massage therapist, yoga instructor, acupuncturist and a meditation counselor in addition to personal exercise trainers.

We have also started to work with the San Francisco Bay Club, which is rolling out a new program in 2008 to benefit low-income cancer survivors. Sunflower Wellness has elected to purchase vouchers for ten women to use the Bay Club facilities for group and other exercise programs tailored to help them with their medical conditions. With that purchase, the Bay Club will double the number of vouchers to twenty. Regan has been working with the Charlotte Maxwell Clinic (benefitting low-income cancer patients) and San Francisco General Hospital to identify specific people to help. We are all very excited that we are able to direct your donations to benefit people most in need. Also, we will continue to expand our participation in such programs so that greater numbers of people will benefit.

Next up, we have been working with a local attorney in San Francisco to secure the pro bono services of his law firm downtown. Jeff has been kind enough to grace us with a variety of advice to date, and will continue to join us for board meetings and other gatherings as we expand our reach. Welcome, Jeff!

One of the direct results of Jeff’s working with us has been the finalization of legal liability language to attach to Chris Goad’s exercise manual. With that, we are pleased to announce that the book itself is now visibly available online at our website. Just click on Cancer & Exercise Manual and there you go.

As for the book itself, we have been in a period of transition in terms of how best to use it. Having it online has made it accessible to anyone who needs to refer to it. Even so, the information needs to be updated, as the various approaches and philosophies to providing personal training to people living with cancer have changed in the nearly four years since Chris finished his manuscript. Chris's sister Cecelia has graciously agreed to work with physicians to review the book and provided updated information.

Finally, we are pleased to announce that Bunny has joined our board of directors. Bunny brings boundless energy and passion to helping make Sunflower Wellness a success by looking for more opportunities to expand our programs. Welcome, Bunny!

A couple of closing notes:

• Please let us know if your email information has changed. Mike keeps the list updated. You can email Mike with your updated information on our Contact webpage here.
• Also, we are always pleased to receive donations, and now that we've worked the many kinks out of our donation process, we are open for business. Please mail checks to:

Sunflower Wellness, Inc.
234 Grand View Ave.
San Francisco, CA 94114

In addition, we now accept donations on the website. Please see the Donation page here.

Thank you to everyone for your incredible support! All the best for a prosperous 2008.