2020 HOPE FOR THE HOLIDAYS campaign
A big success thanks to our donors
Our Hope for the Holidays campaign was very successful this year thanks to many generous donors who brought much joy to many childhood cancer patients and their families.
Megan’s Wings adopted 64 families as part of our Adopt a Family program. Each family received gifts for their children along with gas, grocery and clothing gift cards to support the entire family. In addition, each family received a holiday dinner. A big thanks to all our donors who adopted these families and made the holidays special. Megan’s Wings held two drive-thru pickup events with Santa and his helpers loading care packages into family vehicles. In addition, several home deliveries and hospital drop-offs were made to ensure that patients and their families received their goodies before the Christmas holiday.
Thank you to Albertson’s at the Colonies in Upland who donated 35 holiday meals for pediatric oncology families in the Upland area between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
New this year, Megan’s Wings put together 65 Hope Boxes, and delivered them to four hospitals to distribute children with cancer who would be in the hospital over the holidays. This new project contained crafts for the child to make along with coloring books, a pillow pet, stuffed animal, a lap blanket, warm holiday socks and a handmade hat. A big thanks to our many individual volunteers who provided items for the Hope Boxes. Miles Cupps collected holiday socks as a service project, Dona Merced Elementary School staff donated the coloring books, crayons, and colored pencils; Kathie Agnew provided the stuffed animals; Family Reach donated the Pillow Pets; Jan Shively and Friends, Just Serve and the Linus Project made the blankets and hats.
Thanks to our many wonderful donors, we exceeded our Giving Tuesday end of the year goal of $15,000 by raising over $19,000. We are beyond grateful to our many donors, friends, family and matching gift partners who gave on or before December 1st to help pediatric families with gas cards, groceries, rent, treatment expenses and other needs.
This unprecedented year caused hardships for many families and the support we received during the last couple of months ensured that they had a wonderful holiday, and helped fund our Patient Aid Programs for the beginning of 2021. We are beyond grateful for your continued support. Best wishes in the new year!!
Megan's Wings partnered with The Kind Effect for our Adopt a Family Care Package delivery. In addition to the care package delivery, Santa and a dinosaur delivered a Christmas tree to Kabir's family who had been misplaced due to a family member contracting COVID 19. The move happened as two-year old Kabir was just coming home from his bone marrow transplant so it wasn't safe for him to go home.
February 12 - Join us for a fun Valentine Party at City of Hope, open to all pediatric oncology families. Enjoy manicures & massages, catered lunch and home-made valentine crafts for Parents, Siblings or your favorite nurse!
Family Resources
Car Donation to a
Deserving Recipient
Make a Connection
During the last year, Megan's Wings has received several car donations that have been given to cancer families in need of reliable transportation to get to and from treatments. Frank Fazio donated a car in mid-December and Megan's Wings was able to gift the car to a very deserving young man name Raphael and his wife, Mariam. Their only vehicle was totaled in a bad car accident earlier this year. Raphael broke his prosthetic and his amputated leg in 4 places in the car accident. According to his wife, he still has nightmares from the accident, but he is so grateful to be alive.
Raphael was diagnosed with osteosarcoma in his late teens. He continues his cancer treatments at City of Hope. Megan's Wings was able to bless this sweet couple with an early Christmas present to make it easier for Raphael to get to his treatments at City of Hope.
If you have a used vehicle in good condition that you are interested in donating, contact Kim at (909) 532-8135 or email to info@meganswings.org.
How We've Help
With compromised immune systems, childen with cancer are high risk for the COVID 19 virus. Many of their parents have had to drastically change their lifestyle to protect their child from this pandemic. Megan’s Wings is working to keep these children safe. We are working diligently with social services at medical clinics and hospitals to identify families with needs and get them help. Thanks to emergency donor support, Megan’s Wings Patient Aid and Gas Assistance Programs are functioning at a high level during this critical time.
We continue to help families with house payments, utilities, transportation issues, food and gas gift cards and more through our Patient Aid Program. We were one of a small group of cancer charities to receive an emergency grant from the Inland Empire United Ways to help house, feed, and keep the lights on for many local childhood cancer families. Our Gas Assistance Program has provided 70 families with up to 4 months of gas card support to help get their child to treatment. Thanks to tremendous efforts from volunteer sewers early in the pandemic before masks were widely available and PPP equipment was scarce, we dropped off hundreds of homemade masks to pediatric oncology clinics to help protect families and their children. We are very grateful to our supporters who recognize the work we do, and continue to support us during this worldwide health crisis.
Program Highlights
MEGAN'S VIRTUAL WALK
16th Annual Megan Savage Memorial
Participants walked & ran from all over the US and beyond
We are so grateful to our participants, near and far, this year!! Our virtual event was highly successful with many, many past supporters who continued to support our cause walking virtually at McCarthy Park, local trails, and neighborhoods. We also had many new participants, and we loved having you join us this year for our fall fundraiser!
We had participants from 24 US States, Canada, and the Cupps family completed the walk from Seoul, South Korea. We had great support from the Inland Empire but this year 82 California cities were represented in our virtual walk.
Click here for Race Results for those participants who recorded their finish times.
Thank You
Virtual Walkers and Sponsors!
14th Annual
Megan's Run for a Cure
Coming Together
Adopt-A-Family
Healthy Living Program
DOWN MEMORY LANE
SPECIAL THANKS
Tip the Firefighter
St Patrick's Day Event
Our 18th Annual St Patrick's Fundraiser at Big Al's was canceled on March 12 due to the pandemic to keep our community safe. We had hoped to reschedule, this event, but was never able to due to closure mandates from the state. We are so appreciative of the sponsors who still donated. Our support programs and services are needed by childhood cancer families more than ever. Stay tuned for 2021 Event Details. We look forward to coming together soon!!
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Fun Times at our Galas
Megan's Race Memories
Megan
Emergency Fund Appeal
With uncertainty, comes strength and unity. When fundraising events became uncertain and Financial Aid Need drastically increased, we sent out a social media and email campaign asking for help to raise critical funds for our programs. Thank you to all who responded to our Emergency Fund Appeal! Your donations have helped many vulnerable
families keep their children safe
during the pandemic.
GRANT PROVIDERS
Thank You!
We are very grateful to our grant providers this year! Thank you for your continued support of Megan's Wings. Our programs take flight because of you!!
A Simple Way To Help ~ During the pandemic, we are all shopping more than ever online. Why not help a favorite charity, Megan's Wings at the same time! Login to your Amazon account, choose Megan's Wings as your favorite charity and shop Smile.Amazon. Amazon gives back a percentage of every purchase. It's that EASY!
Megan's Wings Joins
the LiFT Network
We're excited to announce our partnership
with the LiFT Network, a national group of
like-minded nonprofits who work together to fight against the financial burdens brought on by a cancer diagnosis. This fall we will begin offering long term solutions which includes financial planning and education to help families better understand and plan for the financial impacts of their child's cancer diagnosis before they reach a crisis level.
The Financial Treatment Program aims to support families before they hit critical financial breaking points. The program pairs families with a Certified Financial Planner who help with:
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Organization of family finances
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Developing a plan to prioritize payments
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Debt consolidation and management
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Review of savings and investments
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Life insurance and disability
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Review tax issues
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Review of general estate planning
With a financial planner's guidance, families can gain peace of mind about their financial well-being. Healing should be the main focus during treatment, and planners help make that possible.
Together, we are reaching more families. Together, we are stronger.
Host a Birthday Fundraiser on Facebook!
Facebook fundraisers are simple to set up and a great way to support your favorite charity! Facebook does not charge the donor or the charity credit card processing fees so 100% of your birthday donations to Megan's Wings go directly to support kids with cancer by helping pay bills so families can concentrate on getting their child well.
Contact Us
Megan's Wings, Inc.
1042 N. Mountain Avenue, Ste. B303
Upland, CA 91786 • Phone (909) 532-8135
Email:
We have been honored with a Top-Rated Award for 2020 from GreatNonprofits! We appreciate all of your contributions! https://greatnonprofits.org/org/megans-wings-inc
We lost our daughter, Megan at the tender age of nine after a long 2 ½ year battle with Leukemia. She was a sweet, caring, feisty, outgoing little girl. She taught me to not put off tomorrow what we can do today, to love those around us with all our heart, to be thankful for what we have because it can all be taken away in a heartbeat, and that it is our destined journey here on earth to reach out to those in need, helping anyway we can. Megan was such a kind considerate soul, always reaching out to others even in her toughest times. Megan faced her illness with a brave smile and a courageous heart, seldom shedding a tear for herself. While I held her hand, caressed her back and shed a lifetime of tears while she slept, and after she was gone. I never wanted her to see my fears. I couldn’t take away her pain or the cancer that forced her to go through everything she had to endure to fight it. I could only give her medication, soothe her aches with mommy’s tender touch and put my faith in the doctors and God to heal her. As a parent, you feel so helpless.
Megan’s Wings was founded in January 2005 in memory of 9 yr old Megan Savage who lost her Leukemia battle on April 2nd, 2003. During Megan’s 2 1/2 yr struggle with cancer, the Savage family met other families struggling to cope financially and emotionally. It’s often necessary for a parent to cut back hours at work or one parent quit work to care for their sick child. Money eventually runs short to pay the bills & expenses increase such as gas expense for numerous appointments and hospital stays, phone calls to family, meals away from home, increased medical bills. Treatment often stretches into years with relapse, making it difficult to recover financially, even with savings. It is our wish to help ease the financial burden and foster hope through caring so families can concentrate on their sick child.