Susan Gaetz

Original Air Date: June 9, 2024

Susan Gaetz is the executive director of Casting For Recovery, which offers free weekend fly fishing retreats for women struggling with cancer and/or trauma.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to Sunstein Sessions on iHeartRadio,Conversations about issues that matter. Here's your
host, three time Grasie Award winner, Shelley Sunstein. I want to introduce
you to Susan GATESE. She isthe executive director of Casting for Recovery.
And I first heard about Casting forRecovery from a dear friend of mine.

(00:24):
We go back thirty years since shestarted teaching my kids in Hebrew school and
we became very close friends, andwe trained for our first marathon together.
And she went through her breast cancerstruggle before I did, and she got

(00:45):
very involved in Casting for Recovery andit was so helpful to her that she
is now one of the volunteers forCasting for Recovery. And that is my
dear friend, Randy Jettis. Ifyou're listening, Randy, I love you,
and so I have with me now. Susan Gates, who is the
executive director, tell us about Castingfor Recovery. How does this work?

(01:08):
Sure? So, Casting for Recoveryis a national nonprofit and we provide free
fly fishing retreats all across the countryfor women who are in any stage of
breast cancer treatment or recovery. Andthese retreats incorporate instruction in the sport of
fly fishing along with oncology, medicaland psychosocial support, as well as peer

(01:34):
support because you're with others who havebeen through the same breast cancer journey.
And it's a whole weekend focused onempowerment and support and really finding a new
way to engage positively and moving forwardin life. And it's free and it's
free. It's a random lottery foreach person and so everybody has an equal

(01:57):
chance of being selected. We fundraiseon the local level all over the country
to host these retreats. Who dreamedthis up? Yeah? Right? Two
women did. Actually, one wasan angler and the other one was a
reconstructive breast surgeon and they were flyfishing buddies, and at some point on

(02:20):
one of their fly fishing trips theytalked about how healing it was to be
in nature and near water, andthe reconstructive surgeon really thought about the casting
motion of fly fishing and how thatcould be good soft tissue stretching for women
who have scar tissue from astectomes orradiation, good for increasing range of motion.

(02:43):
If you have trouble with your upperbody, shoulder, chest following all
of that surgery. So the ideaof creating this sort of out of the
box support group situation around the sportof flyfishing, but also getting women together
out of a clinical setting, outin a beautiful place. And when did

(03:04):
it start? Susan, Oh,yeah, it started thirty years ago in
Oh my God, you want yeahright. Orbis was our founding sponsor and
so it started up there thirty yearsago with two retreats and just this concept
and it's now been almost thirty yearsand we're serving women in all fifty states.

(03:27):
How will people be able to reachCasting for Recovery to become part of
this lottery? Because I know alot of people listening are saying, I
want to do this, I wantto do this. Absolutely, it's super
easy. You just go to Castingfor Recovery dot org. Everything is on
there about how to find a retreatand we're super easy to reach. We

(03:50):
have a small staff, but it'sa powerful staff and we try to respond
to every single person. So ifyou have any questions about the websit,
if you have any issues, yougo on there and you go to your
state and then you see which retreatsare available in your state and the application
is just a few questions and thatputs you into the pool and you only

(04:13):
apply once, right, Yeah,you usually apply for just one retreat.
It's typically the one closest to youbecause we like to continue to build community
with the staff and the alumni afterthe retreat, so you attend in your
area. But this takes a lotof money to put on. I mean
people have to be they're staying fora whole weekend. So who is donating

(04:35):
to keep Casting for Recovery alive andthriving. Well, we have almost two
thousand volunteers across the country that areassociated with each of our programs that host
these retreats, and they you know, they're not doing bake sales like you
think about it, but they areout there writing grants and talking to corporations

(05:00):
and introducing what we do to individualsand you name it. Every state does
it a little bit differently how theyfundraise based on their contacts and the people
that they know, but it's alllocally driven and funded by the local community.
These retreats are you in every state? How many states are you in?

(05:21):
We're in forty five states. Wherewe are now, yeah, where
we actually host a retreat, andthen for women that live in the few
states where we don't actually host aretreat, they are eligible to apply to
the retreat closest to them, whichis probably just to hop over the state
line to the retreat that's in thestate adjacent to them. But hopefully we'll

(05:43):
be in those last five here inthe next five years. So, and
some states have multiple programs, asyou might imagine out in California, we
have several and larger states there's multipleprograms, multiple retreats. How many women
have gone through casting for recovery.Well, all of our retreats are purposely

(06:04):
small, so this isn't a flyfishing clinic where it's like come up,
come one, come all. Wehost up to fourteen more women at each
retreat, and so over the courseof twenty eight years, we've served a
little over twelve thousand women. We'veheld over nine hundred retreats, but all
purposely small, intimate, so thatwhen women leave, they've really had a

(06:30):
life changing experience that has benefited themthat can then in turn go back and
benefit their families, their communities.All of that. I'm speaking with Susan
Gates. She's the executive director ofCasting for Recovery, and it's for women
in all stages of breast cancer,whether you are just about to get your

(06:51):
treatment, or you have already beenthrough your treatment, or you are in
the middle of your treatment, andit is free. It's a free weekend
Casting for Recovery dot org to getyour name into the lottery. I have
often said that I have no handeye coordination, and so I've never even

(07:13):
tried fly fishing. Is fly fishingdifficult to learn? Fly fishing is not
a power sport, and women makephenomenal anglers and you don't have to have
any fishing experience to benefit from theweekend to be good at fly fishing.
Our weekends are all it's a reallya core group of women at the retreat

(07:38):
and you're being taught by other femaleanglers who've been specifically trained for our program.
They're patient, they're fun. Andthen on the final day of the
retreat, we bring in men andwomen from the local community to be guides
one on one with each woman,so she has a half day of catch

(07:59):
and release fly fishing with her ownguide. But all everybody who volunteers knows
that because most of the women thatcome to our retreats have never fly fished
before. And interestingly, almost seventypercent of the women who apply for our
retreats have never been to a supportgroup. So it tells us we're we're
attracting women who might not be drawnto more traditional resources. But for anyone

(08:24):
who loves nature, you don't haveto be someone who loves fishing. Believe
me, you will love it.We've had women in their twenties all the
way up to their early nineties cometo our retreats, and you know,
there's always chairs. You can fishfrom a chair. There's people who fish
from kayaks or float tubes or it'svery adaptable, and so you women make

(08:48):
fabulous anglers. And it's more thanjust a bob and a bobber going under
the water. You're really thinking aboutnature and where the fish might be and
where you want to land that fly. It's almost a mindfulness exercise that's very
graceful and beautiful. I think womenare phenomenal at it. Do the fish
always get released, Yes, yes, we always release that fish to grow

(09:13):
up and get a little bigger,and if they're already honking big, we
let them loose anyway to go outand do their thing and inspire others.
Tell us about some of the womenwho have experienced casting for recovery some of
the things you've seen. We haveseen so many inspiring stories over the years.
I've seen I've seen young women maybein their late twenties or early thirties,

(09:39):
who really just don't feel like they'reunderstood in their peer group. They're
concerned about relationships or the ability tohave children, and they're they're just in
a different phase than their peers.And they come to a retreat and suddenly
there's a bunch of people who understandexactly what they're thinking, maybe some of

(10:03):
their isolation or their fear that they'rethe only one that may think a certain
way about how they feel. Andthey leave knowing that there's people out there
that totally understand them. They're notalone and they're not an anomaly. And
then we have women who come.We had a woman come and a couple
weeks later she called me up andshe said, when I got home,

(10:26):
my husband told me that he hadn'tseen me smile like that in two years
since I've been the ghost, AndI thought, this is amazing. And
some of these women come back aftera retreat and they volunteer. We have
a lot of volunteers who are pastparticipants because they just want to be a
part of it. It changed theirlife. So I see it as a

(10:48):
way to get support, education,or a new activity in your life,
whatever it is you might be lookingfor. Maybe you just want to get
re engaged with nature because nature's sohealing. Maybe you need a new friend
to talk about the real stuff with. And maybe it's about oncology education because
you're real focused on your treatment processand what your options are. So there's

(11:13):
something for everybody at a casting forrecovery or treat and usually you get something
that you're not expecting when you come. It's really interesting. I have observed
myself that some of the best conversationsI've had were, for example, while
I was training for marathons with ourgroup of like four people, Because somehow,

(11:37):
when you're engaged in an activity andyou're not looking at each other eye
to eye, the conversation flows freerand it's more intimate. I don't understand
quite why, but I think it'sthe same thing as when you talk to
a child, one of your children. It's somehow easier if you're driving the

(12:01):
car and they're sitting next to you, or they're sitting behind you, rather
than going to their bedroom and saying, you know, we need to have
a talk. That is absolutely true. And you know, some of our
activities, of course, we're teachinga lot about how to cast a fly
rod, how to safely release afish. We're talking about conservation healthy water,

(12:26):
protecting the resource that we use.We're also teaching them about knots,
and women often get to tie theirown fly and so you're sitting around,
but you're not staring into each other'ssouls. And it really does the conversations
that flow over over meals or oversome of those activities. I've seen women

(12:48):
share their scars. I mean thisis these are people they met less than
twenty four hours ago. But theretreats are all about fostering comfort and trust
and making it very quickly, veryeasy for women to share deeply and say
things that maybe they don't want tosay to their family and close friends because

(13:09):
some of it's scary. Sure,how did you get involved, Susan Gates?
Well, in a previous career,I was a photographer and I heard
about this organization and I pitched astory and they sent me up to Vermont
and I photographed a retreat and Igot to see just some amazing relationships and

(13:33):
transformations happen, and I just lovedthe program. And that was twenty five
years ago. I started off asa volunteer, and you know, if
you stick with something long enough,they'll ask you to take over. And
that's kind of what happened. AndI have to say that I'm more engaged
and love it even more now thanI did when I started, because I'm

(13:54):
still seeing those same transformations and Iknow that women's lives are being improved by
attending our retreat, and I justwant to see more of that for more
women. We only have about aminute left. What if we not covered
here that you want our audience toknow about casting for Recovery? Well,
I think that I would just lovefor them to go check out our website

(14:18):
and if they're interested in volunteering,there's a place to submit a volunteer application.
If this is meaningful for you,or you know someone that may want
to apply, share what we dowith them. The application is very easy
if you have the means. Ofcourse, we're always looking for financial support
and that would be wonderful as well. And I'm super easy to find.

(14:43):
If anybody ever wanted to speak withme about anything related to our program,
I would love to. Are thevolunteers all female. Nope, we have
lots of male volunteers who are anglers. Some of them help us with events,
some whole fundraising events, or theygo back to their corporations and say,

(15:03):
hey, let's do an employee matchfor this group. Men and women
all welcome. Awesome, Thank youso much, Susan Gates. And again
it's casting for recovery dot org.You've been listening to Sunstein Sessions on iHeartRadio,
a production of New York's classic rockQ one O four point three