One of the beauties of us transferring from the Dallas hospital to San Antonio is re-engaging with the needs of our Rebecca’s Wish patients. Dozens and dozens of pancreas families have poured through our hospital doors since our arrival.
We have a first-hand view to their suffering, and our current pandemic magnifies their struggles. Some of our pancreas families have been hospitalized more than 200 days. One sold their only family car to pay for medical expenses. Some of our families ride a bus to San Antonio from out-of-town, because they cannot afford hospital parking and are now trapped in a hospital without access to basic necessities. With the Ronald McDonald Houses temporarily closed due to COVID, impossibly large hotel and food bills pile up. And on top of all that hardship, most of our families are dealing with lost wages from either the pandemic and/or a parent’s inability to leave the bedside of their sick child.
For Rebecca and I, one of our favorite things is meeting these families and giving them gift baskets filled with snacks, knick knacks, and a check from Rebecca’s Wish for a $1,000 family sponsorship. Because of all the COVID restrictions at the hospital and all the safety precautions (not to mention Rebecca’s illness), we passed our baton to the physicians caring for these pancreas patients. The doctors tell us that the parents are blown away by the financial help and that many weep with gratitude. We have given away so many sponsorships to pancreas families over the last several weeks, that I physically ran out of checks and had to rush order more!
Because the need is so great, Rebecca came up with a wonderful idea to start a Holiday fundraiser as we did 2 years ago. She named it our Hospital Holly Campaign. We have an incredibly generous donor that is willing to match up to $25,000 of all donations coming in!
Help us make this season an unexpected miracle for hurting families.
Love to each of you,
C and R
Link for donations below:
Here are a few photos of the gifts that will be given to Rebecca’s Wish patients. Thank you to Kerry and Jessica Mims for bagging everything up so nicely! The items in these bags were generously provided by Adam Berg, who collected donations for Rebecca’s Wish for his Bar Mitzvah.
