Mission
The Fight Like a Girl Foundation’s Mission is multifaceted:
- Provide emotional and financial assistance to women experiencing financial hardship due to a life-threatening illness.
- Fund medical research for breast cancer and other women’s health causes
- Fulfill the last wishes of women who have been given less than one year to live by a physician.
We may not have a cure for cancer and other serious diseases yet but while we’re waiting we can all stand together, lend a helping hand, and support one another – we can unite as ONE until we’ve WON.
Financial Assistance
Just a few words from a doctor’s mouth and thousands of families’ lives are turned upside down every year. As if the emotional effects of a life-changing diagnosis aren’t difficult enough, often these families are thrown into a financial nightmare. In the first 3 months of being diagnosed, the average cancer patient accrues nearly a half million dollars in medical expenses. Some of these individuals have no insurance whatsoever and many of the ones who do find that it falls short of covering the mounting bills that seem to never stop. This massive debt often results in late bills, lack of funds to purchase enough groceries to get through the month, and the inability to pay for day-to-day items such as shampoo, laundry detergent, toothpaste, soap, and other necessary personal and household products. Financial difficulties become even greater when a spouse must give up a job that had previously assisted in supporting family financial obligations.
The Fight Like a Girl Financial Assistance Fund consists of grants of varying amounts that are awarded to families experiencing a medical crisis. Because we receive many more applications than we have funds for, we select grant recipients based on several factors including extent of financial need. The grant recipient provides the Foundation with bills that are connected to the medical situation and, after approval, payment is made by the Foundation directly to the third party that the money is owed to. Grant funds can also be provided through gas cards, grocery cards, and hotel vouchers for traveling to treatments and back.
Emotional Support
The Fight Like a Girl Support Fund provides emotional support to women diagnosed with cancer or another life-altering illness through personal story sharing, informational articles, daily inspiration, and resources for a variety of free services and programs. Fight Pals and Fight Notes are two of our newest programs for uniting women facing similar challenges and providing a monthly reminder in the mail encouraging those who need an extra boost of support, respectively.
The Fight Like a Girl Princess Program provides support and fun activities for children battling cancer and other serious illnesses. A team of Fight Like a Girl volunteers dresses up in beautiful princess costumes and visits the children in hospitals for a morning or afternoon of finger painting, dress-up, games, temporary tattoos, reading stories, and just some plain ole’ fun – something these children experience little of while confined to a hospital bed. THIS PROGRAM IS SUSPENDED DURING THE COVID PANDEMIC.
Through our grants, support programs, and dedicated staff and volunteers, the Fight Like a Girl Foundation Support Fund is committed to helping relieve some of the emotional burden that comes with a serious medical diagnosis.
Last Wishes
The Fight Like a Girl Last Wish Fund through the Dream Foundation® provides the means for fulfilling the last wishes of women, men, and children who have been confirmed by a physician to have less than 1 year to live. Whether it’s taking a trip they’ve always dreamed of, visiting a relative one last time, meeting a celebrity, or taking a balloon ride, the Fight Like a Girl Last Wish Fund not only offers these brave individuals a reprieve from treatments, worry, and the reality of their illness – if only for a day – but assists in bringing a sense of closure and peace to them as they come to the end of their life’s journey.