To All of Our Supporters,
Listed below is an update on some families we have been helping since our last report.
While many of the checks we write cover rent and mortgages each month, below are a few examples of some of the other expenses the Foundation has been asked to pay during this first quarter of 2024.
Leo’s social worker describes him as a sweet five-year-old little boy who was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia late last summer. Such a diagnosis results in both scheduled and emergency admissions to the hospital as well as frequent outpatient appointments and will continue to do so as his treatment progresses. He lives at home with his parents and three siblings. Mom and dad both have jobs that involve working with children and have had to consider their exposure to other children as being a problem for their already immunocompromised little boy. Mom opted to stop working outside the home and homeschool all the children in the family while taking care of her sick son. Dad has had to greatly curtail his hours, both to take Leo for treatment and to minimize his exposure to outside infection. The loss of income has taken its toll over the period since Leo’s diagnosis. With normal household expenses becoming a problem in their strained financial position, the failure of the family’s septic system was a harsh blow. The Foundation provided the funds to replace the malfunctioning septic pump for the family.
Ten days after we got the request from a social worker about the septic pump described above, a social worker at another hospital reached out to us about a heating system repair. Stephen is a thirteen-year-old who was emergently admitted to the hospital and ultimately diagnosed with b-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Stephen and his single mother had to move in with an older adult sibling when their heating system failed and needed to be replaced. Their social worker was able to perform the sort of thing they do so well and was able to cobble together enough oncology foundations to pay for the replacement after finding a contractor who would do the work quickly and defer payment until the various Foundations sent their checks for payment. The Jeff Musser Foundation was one of the partners in this project.
A social worker approached us about the family of five-year-old Tyshawn who is being treated for relapsed refractory, metastatic high-risk neuroblastoma. This little boy has been undergoing intense treatment since the fall of 2022 and has also suffered permanent vision loss because of the location of his tumor. Tyshawn is part of a large family including his mother and father and siblings. Both mom and dad have had to take significant time off work for the many appointments required for their son’s treatment. Due to no fault of their own, the family’s rental home became infested with rodents. The social worker urgently worked with the landlord to relocate them to a suitable living environment, but the sizeable security deposit required to move to another residence was out of reach for the family with such a tightly strained budget. The Foundation paid the security deposit so the family could move as quickly as possible.
The previous three paragraphs tell the story of some of what’s been requested from the Foundation before the first quarter of 2024 has been completed. You can also add a used auto purchase, quite a few overdue utility bills and many rental and mortgage payments. 2024 got off to another fast start for us and has surpassed the first quarter 2023 expenditure by an increase of more than 26%. We’re confident, though, we can keep pace with the requests sent to us given your history of generosity to the Jeff Musser Foundation. We thank you for your continued support!
Most sincerely,
The Board and Volunteers of the Jeff Musser Foundation