It’s hard to imagine hearing your child has cancer.  It’s hard to wrap your head around it and even know where to begin, or who to go to for answers to questions you haven’t even begun to ask.

With news of life-threatening diagnosis, parents and their families begin the seemingly never-ending spiral of hospitalizations, treatments and family disruptions.  This diagnosis quickly becomes a disease that will overwhelm a family–socially, emotionally and financially.

Friends of Karen is here to help families in financial need. We provide support for children with cancer or other life-threatening illnesses and their families, in order to help keep them stable, functioning, and able to cope. 

In 1978 an amazing woman, Sheila Petersen, helped friends bring their terminally-ill daughter (Karen) home from the hospital to live the rest of her life in dignity, surrounded by the people she loved.  Sheila reached out to the community to help pay for Karen’s round-the-clock homecare. The response was phenomenal. 

Neighbors and strangers alike gave generously to help Karen and her family. When Karen died, Sheila used the remaining funds to reach out to another family, and then another – until today, more than three decades later, Friends of Karen is helping 250 children and their families every single day.

Since our founding in Westchester County, New York,  over 30 years ago, Friends of Karen has grown to serve 22 counties in the New York tri-state area.  But, our mission has never changed.  We support families struggling to cope with their child’s critical illness. We guide these families through some of their darkest days.

Our services are comprehensive and support the entire family. Through our core Family Support Program, we provide emotional support as the whole family copes with the child’s illness, and advocacy assistance with issues concerning treatment, insurance and education. We also help families pay illness-related bills (i.e., medical co-pays, doctor/nursing fees) and basic living expenses (i.e., rent and mortgage bills) that become unmanageable when parents leave work to care for their child and watch their incomes plummet, just as their child’s medical bills begin to soar.  We help parents pay for childcare for their “well” children (to give parents breathing room and to help them focus on their ill child).  And, we offer the services of two sibling support counselors to work with siblings in need.

Friends of Karen’s support also includes supermarket food cards and Thanksgiving dinners for our neediest families; birthday and holiday gifts and back-to-school supplies for the children and their siblings.  Last year alone, we distributed $33,000 in supermarket gift cards and sent holiday gifts to 773 children. These gifts not only matched the children’s own “wish lists,” but also helped overwhelmed parents mark the special holiday with their families at home.

As always, our goal is to relieve the burdens resulting from a child’s illness and, in the process, give parents a “renewed capacity” to care for their children and keep them in their homes.  As one supporter recently commented, Friends of Karen is the “glue” that keeps families together during the most difficult period of their lives.  

These words by Sheila Petersen guide Friends of Karen to this day.  “When parents of a terminally or catastrophically ill child receive financial and emotional help, they then have more time to love.” 

Friends of Karen remains a vital, effective organization thanks to the support of foundations, corporations, community organizations, more than 150 active volunteers and caring individuals who make all the difference in the lives of our children and their families. 

website: www.friendsofkaren.org

office: 1-800-637-2774 or info@friendsofkaren.org

Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/pages/FRIENDS-OF-KAREN/203724888358?ref=search