Casting for Recovery: By the Numbers

It began as a simple idea: give women a therapeutic technique to speed their recovery from breast cancer by exercising the soft-muscle tissue damaged by radiation and/or surgery. Combine this with counseling and education provided by trained professionals, all in a retreat setting away from the stresses of home, work, and family.

Casting for Recovery, based in Manchester, Vermont, began as an idea in 1996 when Gwenn Perkins, a former Orvis casting instructor, and Dr. Benita Walton, a breast reconstruction surgeon, suggested that breast cancer survivors could benefit from both the physical and spiritual act of fly fishing. The idea was to raise money and organize weekend fly-fishing retreats at no cost to the participants. These retreats would combine fly fishing with medical support through counselors and group sessions. The first four retreats took place in 1998, and Casting for Recovery has grown more than tenfold since.

Much of the program’s success is due to its well-organized group of dedicated volunteers across the country. Each volunteer group within a state raises funds to cover the costs of the retreats; they also coordinate the volunteer instructors, medical personnel, counselors, and hosts for their retreat. Past participants are encouraged to continue their involvement by becoming volunteer mentors at subsequent retreats. This ripple effect is seen as paramount to Casting for Recovery’s continued success as a breast cancer support organization.

Over its relatively short history, Casting for Recovery has taken nearly 5,000 women on retreat. The organization received the American Museum of Fly Fishing’s Heritage Award in 2010 and was named one of the country’s top-twenty nonprofits by the New York Times in November 2010.

Nearly 600 women go on these fly-fishing retreats each year. Most of the women, 70%, have never gone to a support group before taking the retreat. The organization gets significantly more applications for the retreats than retreat opportunities they can provide.

Participants pay nothing for the retreat. It is all funded through donations– both monetary and in-kind. Over 1600 volunteers run the retreats including medical personnel, psychosocial professionals and, of course, fly-fishing instructors.

“The sport itself is therapeutic because it’s an introduction to the natural healing properties of the outdoors, while the physical motion of casting a fly rod is beneficial to women recovering from breast cancer. It has that double element of being therapeutic as an outdoor sport and at the same time offers a range of motion that studies show really benefits women.” 

- Whitney Milhoan, Executive Director, Casting for Recovery

Whitney Milhoan, executive director since 2013, continues to work with the board of directors, supporters, and volunteers to bring retreats to every state in the country. Quality-of-life studies show that the education and support provided by the retreat-based program enables survivors to more adequately deal with the medical, psychosocial, and physical aspects of their disease. 

To learn more about Whitney, our history maker for the month of July, check out our previous blog post here