\u201cI don\u2019t feel like I\u2019ve ever had a job,\u201d says Kelly Green, \u201ceverything that I\u2019ve ever done is steeped in passion and is always about justice.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Green is executive director of Help Hope Live, a Radnor-based non-profit that provides fundraising for families during medical crises.\u00a0 The organization provides financial assistance for expenses that fall in the gap between what is covered by health insurance and what is needed for a patient to \u201csurvive and thrive.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about pulling together a community of support for people who feel so completely isolated and alone,\u201d says Green.<\/p>\n
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She says Help Hope Live helps families identify their community of supports and then rallies those individuals to crowdfund necessary medical expenses.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is so hard to be forced to fundraise when you\u2019re facing a catastrophic condition, it\u2019s near impossible,\u201d says Green.<\/p>\n
The organization, founded nearly 40 years ago, protects the families they serve by collecting the money under the cover of the non-profit, which Green says preserves their eligibility for income-based benefits.\u00a0 Help Hope Live also protects donors by verifying the patient\u2019s medical needs and paying vendors directly and by providing them a tax-deductible method of providing support.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe make sure that every dollar expended goes directly to what they\u2019re asking to use the dollars for,\u201d says Green.<\/p>\n
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Help Hope Live has paid for wheelchairs, accessibility devices in cars and in homes, extra physical therapy, medical co-pays, medications, and treatment not covered by insurance and much more.\u00a0 They have aided nearly 20,000 over the years.<\/p>\n
Green has run Help Hope Live for five years but was introduced to the organization 16 years ago.\u00a0 At the time, her own family was dealing with a medical crisis.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mom needed a kidney transplant, and she was pretty far along when we first received the diagnosis and she was very sick,\u201d recalls Green.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Green says they couldn\u2019t find an organ match for her mother, Eileen.\u00a0 Luckily, they got her into an incompatible kidney transplant program in Baltimore. The only problem\u2013 the family needed $15,000-$18,000 in the bank to pay for relocation to Maryland, as well as medical co-pays and deductibles and related expenses.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t have the money,\u201d says Green, \u201cand it was at that moment that I realized that there was truly a price tag on my mom\u2019s life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Green says a social worker told her about Help Hope Live.\u00a0 The group helped the family set up a fundraiser and within a few weeks they had the money they needed, and Eileen got the transplant.\u00a0 The non-profit also stepped in to help when Eileen was later diagnosed with cancer and, again, after she had a tragic fall.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was lucky enough to have had this charity so that we had six more years with her and I didn\u2019t accumulate medical debt,\u201d says Green, noting that Help Hope Live helped her pay the mortgage so that she could take care of her mother in her final days.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe passed ten years ago next month and we miss her every day,\u201d says Green.<\/p>\n
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Since Green began working for Help Hope Live, it has expanded outreach to communities.\u00a0 During an October fundraiser, the organization revealed it raised nearly $8 million last year and increased the number of families served by 30 percent.\u00a0 Part of the expansion includes providing adaptive bicycles to kids following a medical crisis.\u00a0 The Fenton family is one of the recent beneficiaries of the bike program.<\/p>\n
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\u201cAt first I would push him in the back just to kind of help build up strength and mobility in his in his right leg and now he just goes like he and he loves it,\u201d says Emily Fenton, a mother of four.<\/p>\n
Her youngest, Vinnie, who was 3-years-old at the time, suffered a life-changing seizure in January of 2020.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe were trying different therapies, and nothing was really working,\u201d recalls Fenton, \u201che regressed very, very quickly and it was really scary\u2014 I quit my job and my whole world stopped when this had happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fenton says Vinnie had to have brain surgery. Luckily, recovery came quickly, and Vinnie soon gained his independence, but he still needed to get outside and to strengthen his right side.\u00a0 Help Hope Live stepped in and this summer provide Vinnie\u2014 whose nickname is \u201cVinnie the Vampire\u201d after his first Halloween costume- got a custom adapted bike.\u00a0 That\u2019s when Fenton got to know Kelly Green.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s just amazing, she really is,\u201d says Fenton.<\/p>\n
The bike, says Fenton, gave Vinnie the chance to be a kid again and to play with his siblings.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just it makes me really, really happy to see him doing what he loves to do,\u201d says Fenton.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Kelly-onLeft-with-family-fam.jpg\")
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The change she sees in Vinnie is why Fenton says Kelly Green and the work being done at Help Hope Live is good soul work.\u00a0 Green loves every minute of it because for her the work is not a job.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, it\u2019s always been about making sure people have access to what they need to survive and thrive,\u201d says Green, \u201cand to ensure there\u2019s a level playing field.\u201d<\/p>\n
For more about Help Hope Live, go to https:\/\/helphopelive.org\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n \u201cI don\u2019t feel like I\u2019ve ever had a job,\u201d says Kelly Green, \u201ceverything that I\u2019ve ever done is steeped in passion and is always about justice.\u201d Green is executive director of Help Hope Live, a Radnor-based non-profit that provides fundraising for families during medical crises.\u00a0 The organization provides financial assistance for expenses that fall in …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36247,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[161],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brandon.ddtest.info\/multisite-test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36246"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brandon.ddtest.info\/multisite-test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brandon.ddtest.info\/multisite-test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brandon.ddtest.info\/multisite-test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brandon.ddtest.info\/multisite-test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.brandon.ddtest.info\/multisite-test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brandon.ddtest.info\/multisite-test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brandon.ddtest.info\/multisite-test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brandon.ddtest.info\/multisite-test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brandon.ddtest.info\/multisite-test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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