WATCH: Volunteers Needed For LI Breast Cancer Program

GARDEN CITY, NY — Adelphi University's long-running Breast Cancer Program is seeking volunteers to assist and support women in need.

Volunteers will take part in a four-part training starting on Feb. 24.

They seek "volunteers who are survivors, a year past treatments, this way they have enough distance from their own experience to help others," Hotline supervisor and volunteer Nina Foley told Patch.

Additionally, hotline volunteers should be "engaged and enthusiastic," Foley said they also need prospective volunteers to be available on weekends.

Callers to the hotline could be newly diagnosed with breast cancer or perhaps they will reach out on behalf of a loved one.

"They might be looking for resources related to breast cancer, or just there to provide support in general," Foley said.

Not only do volunteers support women on the phone's other end, they support each other.

"Right now, we have 65 volunteers on our team [who] look at this time as a second family," Foley said. "It provides a lot of connection."

Training topics include community outreach, educational presentations, speaking engagements, publicity, and fundraising.

"We do have a pretty strenuous training program," she said. "We have an interview process beforehand [to] make sure that they have enough distance and that they're ready to talk to others about their experience and not be impacted by it."

To find out about being a volunteer, you can email nfoley@adelphi.edu or call (516) 877-4315.

Watch the full "Patch Weekly Spotlight" interview with Foley below.