SCOTTSVILLE, N.Y. – For the last decade, the local chapter of a non-profit has offered a summer fly fishing retreat for breast cancer patients but this year, it’s short on funding and hoping the community might step up to help out.

Sarah Covell of Perry, doesn’t waste a day. Even on a cold one recently, she and her friend Lisa suited up to do some fly fishing at a local creek.   

Sarah was diagnosed with breast cancer back in 2012.

“Everything was fine for about 12 years and then last year I was re-diagnosed with stage 4,” she tells News10NBC. 

Sarah is now living with terminal cancer. She’s found support through the Breast Cancer Coalition of Rochester and it was during a meeting there, she first learned about a fishing retreat specifically for breast cancer patients.

“Somebody said, “you ought to sign up for Casting for Recovery” and I’m like, what is that? And they explained fly fishing… and I’m like… hmmm, fly fishing?” Sarah says with a smile.

She had never tried to fish at all until she was chosen for the retreat last summer.

“You don’t feel like life is ever going to be normal again but somehow or another, at this retreat, we all feel normal, we all just feel like regular people learning how to fish,” Sarah says.

Casting for Recovery is a non-profit organization that was founded by a breast cancer surgeon.

“She was interested in fly fishing and she was interested in kind of the motion of fly fishing and how that can effect some of the tissue that are often involved in breast cancer surgery, it’s a very therapeutic kind of motion. And then of course there’s been a lot of research into nature and how healing nature is and the impacts of that so it kind of puts all those things together in one great package,” says Lisa Green, a volunteer fishing instructor with Casting for Recovery.

Each year, 14 women from upstate New York are chosen for the retreat, which is held along the Salmon River at Tailwater Lodge.

“It just blew me away, the energy and the spirit of the women and I feel like I learned a lot more from them, than they ever did from me,” Lisa says.

In addition to the fishing, the women, in various stages of treatment or remission, also attend support groups and social events together.  

Here’s the problem, Casting for Recovery is about $5,000 short of what it will cost to put on this summer’s upstate New York retreat.

“I met some amazing women and had some amazing experiences, and it really truly was life changing,” Sarah says.  And she’s hoping the community might step up to help offer the same experience for other women fighting this disease.

If you would like to donate to Casting for Recovery Upstate New York: Click here

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