Mission
The Fight Like a Girl Foundation’s Mission is multifaceted:
- Provide financial assistance to families and individuals experiencing financial hardship due to a life-threatening illness.
- Provide emotional support to families and individuals experiencing a life-threatening illness
- Fulfill the last wishes of women, men, and children 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.
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 families who have had a family member diagnosed with cancer or another life-altering illness. As a state-based program, each State Chapter plans, arranges, and hosts support meetings for the entire family, provides helpful information and resources, and when possible coordinates activities for the support group to give the families a brief reprieve from the stress of their daily lives. Everyone qualifies for the emotional support part of our services.
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 dress up in beautiful princess costumes and visit the children in hospitals for a morning or afternoon full of finger painting, photos, dress-up, games, and just some plain ole’ fun – something these children experience little of while confined to a hospital bed.
Through our grants, support programs, and dedicated staff and volunteers, the Fight Like a Girl Foundation is committed to helping relieve both the financial and 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.