In the past year Saint Agatha gave more than $2 million to organizations that help provide direct support to cancer patients
By Mary Beth Roach
Part of the impact of the Saint Agatha Foundation, established in 2004 to provide financial assistance to breast cancer patients, can be measured in its statistics. In the past year Saint Agatha gave $2,293,043 to 19 organizations that help provide direct support to patients, according to Kathy Mezzalingua, president and board chair of the foundation.
But those numbers don’t tell the whole story.
The foundation, she said, has provided financial assistance to approximately 13,000 breast cancer patients who have been able to better focus on their health and treatments, due to the work of the foundation. And that was the whole reason why Laurie Mezzalingua, Kathy’s daughter, founded the organization. Born in Manlius, Laurie was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1997 and despite a valiant battle, she passed away in 2009 at the age of 41. She made her mother promise to carry on the mission and work of the foundation.
And Mezzalingua has embraced that responsibility.
“It’s just been my life’s work now, just to help women because that’s what she wanted me to do,” she said.
The foundation can help with costs associated with treatment, procedures, or testing; alternative treatments not covered by insurance; prescription co-payments; breast
reconstruction; medications not covered by insurance; non medical living expenses; transportation costs to and from treatments; wound care systems; and medical office visits and procedural co-payments.
Patients do not receive funding directly, nor are they reimbursed, Mezzalingua said. They need to connect with partner healthcare providers to learn how to access assistance. To locate that help, patients or their loved ones can visit the Saint Agatha Foundation website at saintagathafoundation.org and click on the For Patients tab. There is a list of different partner agencies in the various counties the foundation serves, including Onondaga, Cortland, Cayuga, Madison, Oneida, Oswego and Jefferson.
“That’s our goal, just to make sure that everybody who is diagnosed with breast cancer knows our name and knows that the minute they are diagnosed, the next sentence they hear is, ‘There’s help financially available,’” Mezzalingua said.
In addition, the foundation provides grants through an application process to public charities serving breast cancer patients in Broome, Cayuga, Chenango, Cortland, Jefferson, Madison, Oneida, Onondaga, Otsego, Oswego and Saint Lawrence counties.
It also supports such groups as Camp Kesem, for children of breast cancer patients who might be suffering because their mother is going through it, Francis House, Sarah House, and The Syracuse Orchestra, since music can help patients when they’re going through chemotherapy, Mezzalingua said.
The foundation has also helped some agencies when there was a surplus at the end of the fiscal year, Mezzalingua said. For example, it has provided a software update for a mammogram machine.
Looking ahead, Mezzalingua said she wants to continue to inform Central New York communities about the foundation and she is hoping that it can assist patients in other ways too.
“I’d also really like to get more personally involved. We have a stable of volunteers who are very anxious to help. So, I would like to get them involved in really working with our patients, one-on-one counseling, sitting with them during chemo visits,” she said. “We want to be there for every facet of their lives.”
