Welcome

Almost 11 years ago, my best friend, Sharon, died due to Breast Cancer.  Two and a half years ago, during the height of Covid, my husband, Rod died from Melanoma.  Losing my two best friends to cancer has been devastating.   After Rod died, we could not go anywhere, see anyone, be with anyone or really, do anything, due to the Covid lockdown.  After Rod passed, we all grieved together at the hospital and then we all just went home.  Many of my friends – many of you who are here today – I could do nothing other than talk to you on the phone.  We all know that a phone call is nice, but a hug is much better.  Hearing someone’s voice is nice but seeing them is much better.  Having someone offer to do something for you is nice, but actually helping a friend is much better. 

When many of you reached out to me, or to others, following Rod’s passing, you wanted to help raise money, or start a GoFundMe page or similar things.  All that would do was help me and my girls.  I chose to channel that desire you had to help me and turn it into this foundation, whose sole goal is to help others. 

For those that don’t know, our Vision Statement is: 

Making each day count through acts of kindness to support those impacted by cancer.

Our Mission Statement is:

To cultivate friendships and build a community to serve those impacted by cancer with personal, emotional, and/or financial support throughout their journey.

We all know that cancer sucks. We all know that it is a horrible disease.  There is nothing about today, or this walk, or all of you supporting us that will – in any way – change these facts about cancer.  But this foundation isn’t about changing any facts about cancer.  This foundation isn’t trying to cure a disease or do any of the things that most foundations do.  This foundation was started for one major purpose - be a friend and help people. 

With your support, we have done just that.  I want everyone to know what we have done and how your support has led to direct help and friendship to people dealing with cancer. 

             Since we started this foundation, we have helped over 55 families that were dealing with cancer in some way.  In the last year, we have helped 30 different families.  This help has come in many different forms.  In the last year alone, we have provided families with over $8,000 in gift cards to assist with food, gas, travel, and any other needs that we could assist with. 

We partnered with local school children, who donated their time and energy to create care bags that we could provide to anyone in treatment for cancer.  This group of dedicated children packed over 100 bags for us to give away. 

We have partnered with different local businesses to assist people with cleaning their home and have targeted other businesses that can provide different types of assistance, from rides, to chores, and other services. 

We organized a fundraiser for a local family whose son was undergoing stem cell harvesting and reimplantation to help battle his cancer. Nearly $10,000 was raised to assist with their medical bills. We also obtained a week’s long hotel stay for the parents so that they could stay near their son and not have to deal with 2-3 hours of travel each day.   

We have also sent many gifts from flowers, Edible Arrangements, teddy bears, personalized blankets, and many other items.  These items were us trying to be the Friend that people needed in these situations. 

With your continued support, we will continue to help as many people as we can and will continue to be a Friend to these families.  But we need more than your financial support, we need your help in finding the Friends that we can help.  All our social media platforms, from Facebook, to Instagram, to LinkedIn and our web site have a link to a fillable form where any person can recommend any person that needs help from this Foundation.  If you know of someone going through a cancer journey, let us know.  Let us help them in the ways that we know how.  Connect us to anyone that you know dealing with this disease.  We will not cure them.  We will not make it go away.  But we will be there for them, and we WILL be their Friend – in whatever form that takes. 

Thank you for supporting us and thank you for being a Friend.