Profiles in Courage – February 2021
Grants were reveiwed and sent early this month, so recipients would get them in time for the holidays.
Sample February 2021 Lemonade Fund grant:
H., 42, married, 4 young children, getting chemotherapy for advanced breast cancer, awaiting surgery. Two adult siblings live with the family, one with bipolar disease, one with terminal cancer. Husband, a factory worker, has had to miss work to care for wife and family. Family is in financial crisis. Lemonade Fund awarded.
Help the Lemonade Fund continue this important work. Thank you!
Profiles in Courage – January 2021
Starting 2021 with stories of 2 breast cancer patients who needed help, who got Lemonade Fund grants this week:
R., 42 years old, married with 4 children (ages 7-15.) (Husband not working, is fully disabled.) D. was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer in August, now also not working, family in very poor financial situation.
N., 71 year old widow. 4 living children (1 died from cancer 20 years ago, another lives with her due to mental health issues.) Recently widowed after she was diagnosed with breast cancer and left with husband’s debts (of which she was unaware.) Was an assistant kindergarten teacher and has no savings. She lives solely on her pension and her son’s disability payments, and is now facing bankruptcy.
Your donation helps give Israeli breast cancer patients room to breathe while they are in treatment. Thank you!
2021 – Lemonade Fund 10th Anniversary Year!
Urgent: Rushing to Help Breast Cancer Patients During Holidays and Lockdown
We are seeing an unprecedented number of requests for emergency financial aid right now. We are rushing to send funds to breast cancer patients and their families, who are in crises. On top of breast cancer, for many of our applicants, Corona has caused job loss, layoffs or an inability to be in a risky job setting. Lockdown will now add a new layer of difficulty. Most applicants need help supplementing basic living costs (food, rent, transportation to treatments, etc.)
Oncology social workers throughout the country are contacting us NOW due to the severe economic toll on their patients. Approved applicants are getting their grants immediately. Lemonade Fund grants are more than just money. They are a sign that these families are not alone, that we are all with them.
9 Lemonade Fund grants sent last week…one among them…
T. Single mother of 3 young children, fired from her job, then dx with Stage 4 Triple Negative BC. Desperate situation.
Please consider donating to the Lemonade Fund at this critical time.
Thanks for your support. A happy and a healthy New Year. May this be a time of new beginnings.
TO DONATE: https://lemonadefund.org/to-donate/
Lemonade Fund…helping Israeli breast cancer patients since 2011.
Profiles in Courage – August 2020
T. is a 38 year old widow with 5 children (ages 3-13,) from a town in the Jezreel Valley. In May she discovered a lump in her breast which turned out to be malignant. T. doesn’t live near family, but until now she has been able to manage financially on her widow’s pension. With a diagnosis of breast cancer, and a year of treatment ahead of her; chemo, surgery, radiation then reconstruction, T. will need extra childcare and household help in order to manage. The Israel Lemonade Fund awarded T. a generous grant to help her pay for help so that she can focus on her recovery.
A., a 39 year old divorced mother of 3 children from Haifa was diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer recently. Two of her children, 13 and 7, are autistic and need special help. She receives no alimony and can no longer work. She is is in financial crisis and is frantic. Her social worker applied to the Israel Lemonade Fund for an emergency grant to tide her over until more social service help becomes available. Grant awarded.
With special thanks to the Inbar and Marius Nacht Foundation for their support of the Lemonade Fund TAXI PROGRAM FOR CANCER PATIENTS DURING CORONA, providing free taxi rides to treatment for cancer patients during Corona. (To apply for a taxi ride, see TAXI link: http://www.lemonadefund.org)
TO DONATE TO THE ISRAEL LEMONADE FUND:
Even if I Cannot Find the Words…
This year, I cannot find the words.
On 9 Av 5770 (July 20, 2010,) out of the blue, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Thank God, I am fine. I remember in 2010 thinking about 2020 as if the number itself was a mirage, a miracle. And, here we are. I am very grateful.
Since then, over the years, I’ve written about getting shocking, potentially life-threatening news particularly on the saddest date of the Jewish calendar. I’ve tried to use the ‘anniversary’ to learn about overcoming destruction, (personal and national,) through healing (personal and national.)
In retrospect, those years seemed quite normal. This year I cannot find the words.
The Book of Lamentations by Jeremiah, read each year on 9 Av, will resonate this year, with its talk of desolation. Those who buried loved ones from afar on ZOOM have lived this word. Illness, uncertainty, fear, hunger, despair, anxiety….these are some of the words of the day.
As we pray for an end to this calamity we can only offer solace and help during this dark time.
When trains and buses shut down (or became too dangerous for immunocompromised patients,) the Lemonade Fund created an additional service, the TAXI RIDES FOR CANCER PATIENTS DURING CORONA PROGRAM. (Want good news for a change? Click here to read the story of a woman and her taxi.)
Since March, the Israel Lemonade Fund has arranged more than 2000 free taxi rides to chemotherapy for needy Israeli cancer patients who had no other way to get to treatment.
The Lemonade Fund core mission, to award financial assistance to needy Israeli breast cancer patients, is more important than ever with more Israeli citizens pushed into poverty due to the economic crisis. Read to learn more about how the Lemonade Fund is making an impact.
Please consider partnering with us. Your donation will go directly to a taxi grant or to our core Lemonade Fund mission, helping impoverished breast cancer patients so they can focus on recovery.
An average Lemonade Fund grant is NIS 2,100 ($615.) Your support of NIS 2,500 ($730) would pay for one emergency grant and 3 taxi rides (the average cost of a Corona Taxi ride is NIS 120 ($35.)
We may not know yet how to eradicate Covid-19, but Tisha B’Av can teach us about spreading compassion so that we can ease this difficult time for each other.
“You have turned my sorrow into dancing. You have removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, so that my soul may sing to you and not be silent. My God forever will I thank you.” -Psalm 30
Wishing all of you an easy and meaningful fast, and many years of peace, health and happiness. With many thanks,
Shari
Shari Mendes
Founder and Director, Israel Lemonade Fund
HOW YOU CAN GIVE DIRECT HELP TO CANCER PATIENTS DURING CORONA
- Buses/trains cancelled, limited or risky…cancer patients without cars must have an alternative way to get to chemo or radiation. https://www.ynetnews.com/article/ByUdAEEkP
WITHOUT TREATMENT THEY CAN DIE. IT’S THAT SIMPLE.
- On March 8, the Israel Lemonade Fund created the TAXI RIDES FOR CANCER PATIENTS DURING CORONA Program.
- April- The Inbar and Marius Nacht Foundation joined us, in partnering with GETT Taxis enabling more patients to benefit.
- 2,300 free taxi rides have already been sent to needy cancer patients so that they WON’T MISS TREATMENT DURING CORONA.
- They need rides from August onward…
YOU can help the Israel Lemonade Fund reach it’s goal of NIS 180,000 ($52,245.) Funds raised by this campaign will go straight toward TAXIS for needy breast cancer patients in the TAXI program, as well as for the general work of the Lemonade Fund, providing emergency financial grants to breast cancer patients in treatment.
TO DONATE TO THE ISRAEL LEMONADE FUND CORONA APPEAL, PRESS HERE.
Transportation Ministry ordered all public transport operators to disinfect the buses but failed to enforce the guidelines, instead passing the responsibility to the Health Ministry; 1,032 incidents of exposure to virus carriers on buses in 2 weeks
Asaf Zagrizak|
Published: 07.09.20 , 12:24
Israel’s exceedingly filthy public buses have become a major source of coronavirus infection, according to health officials, but public transport companies continue to neglect the problem while the ministries shift the responsibility.
According to the Health Ministry, in the last two weeks there have been 1,032 incidents of exposure to a confirmed coronavirus carrier on public transport.
The Movement for Freedom of Information group petitioned the Transportation Ministry to respond to the allegation they’ve failed to enforce public health orders on bus operators. The ministry, however, said the responsibility for enforcing health regulations lies with the Health Ministry.
The Health Ministry, meanwhile, said the responsibility lies solely with the Transportation Ministry.
Bus route 7 in Tel Aviv on Thursday
The latest incident occurred in Tel Aviv on Monday, on Line 18 bus operated by the Dan Public Transportation. On the same day, exposures to confirmed virus carriers were reported on Line 7 in Bnei Brak, lines 3,26 and 10 in Tel Aviv, and Line 13 in Hadera.
On July 5, 15 incidents of exposure to verified carriers were reported on public transport: Line 430 from Haifa to Tiberias, Line 434 from Tiberias to Haifa, Line 960 from Haifa to Jerusalem, Line 270 from Tel Aviv to Rishon Letzion, Line 180 from Bnei Brak to Elad , Line 998 from Bnei Brak to Kiryat Ata, lines 18 and 10 within Tel Aviv, Line 20 in Jerusalem, Line 20 in Ashdod, Line 48 in Ramat Hasharon and Line 2 opearting in Kiryat Ata and Haifa.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced at the very start of the coronavirus outbreak in March that all public transport vehicles must regularly be disinfected, with the Transportation Ministry issuing a host of guidelines to the public transport operators shortly afterwards.
