Presents the CanBe App

About CanBe

We’re connecting the cancer support ecosystem in a privacy-first, no-cost way — built to reduce uncertainty, isolation, and burden.

Our mission

CanBe exists to help people affected by cancer find practical and emotional support faster — without having to search across countless sites. We’re building a platform that helps individuals and caregivers discover what’s available nearby, and helps charities and nonprofits get found.

We’re committed to a conservative approach to privacy and trust: we avoid selling personal information, we minimize what we collect, and we focus on explaining choices in plain language. CanBe is free for people and nonprofits.

Contact us Get updates

What we’re building

  • For people affected by cancer — simpler discovery of support options (events, services, education, and peer connections) so it’s easier to decide what’s worth your time.
  • For charities and nonprofits — clearer visibility for your public programs, with a path toward claimable profiles and privacy-safe signals about demand.
  • For research and mission-aligned partners — ethical, aggregate-only insights that help fund access and understand broad gaps (not individuals).
What does “privacy-first” mean here?

We design the platform to avoid individual-level tracking and to keep outputs conservative. When we share insights with partners, they’re aggregate-only and designed to be k-anonymous — never person-level, never patient targeting.

How we stay trustworthy

  • Privacy first — we don’t sell personal information and we aim to collect only what’s needed.
  • Always free — cancer patients and nonprofits never pay.
  • Evidence-based and transparent — we prioritize trusted sources and clear provenance.
  • Accessible by default — built with WCAG 2.2 AA patterns, keyboard-first and readable.

Founding team

CanBe is founded by Lauren Huffmaster and James Creston. Together, they’re building a platform that treats trust as a product requirement — not a tagline.

Photo of Lauren Huffmaster

Meet the founder

Lauren Huffmaster

Lauren is a metastatic breast cancer survivor, author, speaker, coach, and entrepreneur. She’s built programs that help people name the emotional side effects of cancer and find a path through them — turning lived experience into practical, compassionate support.

Her work spans community, coaching, and education. She is the founder and creator of Adventure Therapy Foundation and the creator of RISE, and she continues to serve the cancer community through storytelling, teaching, and building spaces where people feel known.

Lauren’s work and resources

Photo of James Creston

Introducing the entrepreneur

James Creston

James Creston is first and foremost a creator focused on building durable, well-run systems. His career began in electrical power generation, where he operated large-scale facilities and led teams in high-reliability environments—work that demands discipline, accountability, and clarity under pressure. That foundation directly informs how CanBe is being built.

Over the past 15+ years, James has co-founded and operated a customer-facing small business (Vamp Salon Extension Studio), serving as business manager and systems owner. That experience shaped a core belief behind CanBe: software must reflect how real organizations operate—financially, operationally, and over time. Sustainable systems matter because they ship, scale responsibly, and keep working long after launch.

He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Adventure Therapy Foundation.

After surviving stage 2B Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, James redirected his focus toward reducing friction and administrative burden within the cancer experience. He brings a hands-on, execution-first approach to CanBe’s development—designing with intent, iterating carefully, and delivering only what can be supported in the real world.

James’s background and links