In 1988, the Cancer Caring Center opened its doors in Bloomfield to welcome and support cancer patients and families, thanks to the efforts of some local community leaders and businesses. These ‘visionaries’ included Burger King franchisees, Heinz executives and health professionals who recognized the need to address the emotional impact of the diagnosis. Two decades later, the Center remains true to the initial mission: helping people move forward with a variety of free programs.

Services feature groups led by experienced facilitators at area locations including Monroeville, South Hills, McKeesport, McKees Rocks, Murrysville, Johnstown, Cranberry, North Hills, Butler, Jefferson, and Shadyside. They offer pet therapy for children at Animal Friends in the North Hills, children’s groups in Mt. Lebanon, yoga in Lawrenceville, daytime Breast Cancer group in Homewood, and young adults support in Bethel Park.

The Bloomfield Headquarters provides individual and couples counseling, children’s groups, a telephone helpline, reiki, couples therapy, wellness and stress management and groups for caregivers and brain tumor patients.

Thank YOU who believe in the Center and who have entrusted them with this vital mission of making a difference in the lives of patients and families.

The 15th Dorkbot Pittsburgh is coming up on Thursday, April 24 at the Brillobox in Bloomfield. See http://dorkbot.org/dorkbotpgh/events.html for full details and directions.

If you attended last month’s Dorkbot you can expect more of the same, only this time focusing on robots! If you weren’t able to attend previously, you can always download video podcasts of previous speakers (including my Dancetown talk).

Dorkbot Pittsburgh is a monthly salon and show-and-tell for artists, scientists, social engineers, and others doing strange things with electricity. We meet upstairs at Brillobox on a monthly basis. Dorkbot is open to the public and admission is always free. This month’s speakers are:

Eric Schweikardt: Eric is a deliberate comprehensivist—his background is in architecture and now he makes modular robotic stuff. He’s convinced that playing with computational toys encourages kids to develop intuitions about complexity and become better designers. Eric will demonstrate roBlocks, a robotic construction kit made up of little magnetized cubes. He’s currently a PhD candidate in Computational Design at Carnegie Mellon University.

Marek Michalowski: Marek is a Ph.D. student in the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. He participates in the Social Robots Project, the Project on People and Robots, Humanoids@CMU, and RoboOrg (the RI student organization). Marek will discuss BeatBots, a project to develop rhythmically intelligent robots for research and entertainment.