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"Giving a helping hand to parents when they need it the most!"
Katie's Helping Hand (KHH) is a charitable fund that
provides meals for families whose children are admitted to the hospital for prolonged periods of time. The charity was conceived and founded in October of 2005 by then 12 year old Katie Vacanti-Mitchell, who was herself, hospitalized for treatment of Leukemia.
Together, we can make a difference in people's lives when they need it most!!
Parents of children suffering life threatening illnesses are impacted not only emotionally but financially - gas for multiple trips to the hospital, phone calls, babysitters for children who are at home without Mom or Dad there with them, co-pay costs for medicine, meals eaten out, and many other necessities while a child is treated for long term life threatening illnesses add to the already heavy burden for these families. Regardless of a family’s finances, all these items are added expenses not planned for that can quickly mount up and sometimes overwhelm a family.
In many cases, the parent who is missing work is not covered by sick leave pay, and as such their income is being negatively impacted at the same time their expenses are going up.
Katie’s Helping Hand addresses two of these issues:
Meals – While a child’s meal is covered under their insurance (or by the hospital if the child is receiving uncompensated medical care), meals for the parent staying by that child’s bedside are not covered. The average stay for a child receiving their first phase of chemo for Leukemia is 28 days. If the average cost of a meal is $5.00 this equates to $420.00 for meals for one parent for the 28 days. Using Katie’s Helping Hand, a parents can choose a meal from an in room menu. The meal is delivered to their child’s hospital room. The fund is charged $5.00 per meal.
Phones – Another major cost for parents is communication. For parents who travel from outside the immediate area to bring their child to the best hospital for their illness, calls home are long distance. While many people have cell phones, the minutes these calls use can be expensive. For people with no cell phone, the calls are long distance which can also be expensive. Katie’s Helping Hand provides phones to allow parents to communicate with their friends and family during this time of need.