It started six years ago started with a handful of interested women doing rowing workouts in a gym. Now CREW309 has 50 active members with crew members getting on the Illinois River four or five times a week in the summer.

While people who have received a cancer diagnosis are likely familiar with traditional support groups, there’s a unique organization in Greater Peoria for breast cancer survivors that offers both support and the ability to reduce their risk for cancer recurrence.

Short clip of this morning’s outing with CREW309. Thanks for letting me tag along!

CREW309 is short for Cancer Recovery by Empowering Women. This nonprofit team is compiled of breast cancer survivors who are rowing indoors and out in the Peoria Area to fight cancer.

“We don’t talk about cancer,” Seitz-Goddard said. “We don’t want to have to talk about cancer but we all understand one another’s backstories. It brings us together on a different level than maybe sitting in a circle and just talking. We really rally around one another if someone has a recurrence, we know how to pick each other.”

“It really helps to be in a room with people that truly get it and have been through it,” said survivor and CREW309 Treasurer Karoline Seitz-Goddard. “We’ve all been through it and we all understand. And we actually don’t talk about it that much. But, you walk in and everybody knows. And if someone is going in for a check-up or a scan or something like that, we really support each other.”

Ok...so I wasn’t really paddling WITH the crew...because I wouldn‘t have been able to keep up. CREW309 is short for Cancer Recovery by Empowering Women, and they are a nonprofit group breast cancer survivor‘s rowing/sculling team in the Peoria area.

CREW309 was founded in 2017 as ROW Peoria—a local team under the umbrella of Chicago-based Recovery On Water. It was Kassie Williams, a young breast cancer survivor from Peoria, who thought: Why don’t we do it here in Peoria? Upon connecting with Vlaminck and others, a movement was born.