Requests for Angel Foundation’s Financial Assistance program are at an all-time high.  The adults applying for assistance are regular people–they’re homeowners, business owners, young and old, male and female.  Most of them have health insurance.  some face the normal pressures of parenting and others are parenting children with special needs or illnesses.  Many serve as volunteers working to make their community a better place and others are caring for aging parents.  The only difference is that on top of all these daily demands, they have cancer.

Week after week of radiation treatments have left Joseph weak and fatigued (for more of Joseph’s story visit our blog at www.mnangel.org).   It has also left him anxious as he has been unable to work.  The costs of driving to and from the clinic daily, parking costs and co-pays have been a financial stress.  An unexpected and expensive car repair put him in the position of choosing between the mortgage payment and the repair bill.  If he didn’t get the car repaired, he had no way to get to treatment.

Joseph was already familiar with Angel Foundation as his family participated in Facing Cancer Together activities.  They had also benefited from a gift from Margie’s fund to buy food for a holiday meal as part of the organization’s annual campaign to help cancer patients during the holidays.  This was different.  Now Joseph needed help and he needed to ask for it.  He had always been able to provide for his family and now he was questinging if he would be able to do that any more.  This reality compounded the distress he felt over the entire cancer situation.

Joseph applied for Financial Assistance and received $600 to help pay the mortgage freeing up necessary cash to pay for the car repair.  His initial humiliation over asking for help was replaced with peace of mind.  He only had a few more weeks of treatment and hopefully it wouldn’t be long before he was working and everything was more “normal”.  As Joseph wrote in a note to Angel Foundation:

“We are at a loss for words to thank you properly.  It is so nice of you to help us in this day and age when money is in such short supply everywhere and so many people are in need.”

The need is great.  That’s why angel Foundation’s Board of Directors has increased the challenge to new donors to $15,000!  The response to the Board’s $10,000 matching grant has been inspiring and each board member has made a personal contribution to raise the match to $15,000.  To meet this challenge by December 31, we will need everyone to get involved.  Encourage your friends, family and co-workers to make a donation to Angel Foundation today.

Angel Foundation has surpassed many milestones in the ten years since our founding.  On July 1, 2011, the amount distributed per qualified applicant was increased by 20%.  In November, the Financial Assistance program processed more applications and distributed more grants to adults in treatment for cancer than any other year in our history.  Margie’s fund–a small fund making a big difference–has distributed 40% more in financial assistance this year than last.  By the end of the year, over 1,000 adults will have received more than $500,000 in emergency assistance to help them meet their non-medical basic living expenses.

This is only accomplished thanks to your support.  Help us meeet the $15,000 challenge.