Hi Everyone! Thank you for taking the time to visit Feeding Families Foundation! If you have had the opportunity to read “Our Story,” you know that our family, like so many others, has been adversely affected by pediatric cancer. Our experience is not unique. Like other families with a child with a critical illness, we were scared, stressed, exhausted, and hungry while in the hospital. In the moment, we viewed our experience as just life in a hospital, something we did not question. But the more time we spent in the hospital, the more opportunities we saw to help families like ours. Feeding Families Foundation is the culmination of that thought process.
In our opinion, a parent staying at the hospital with their child should be provided food. They should not have to search for and purchase it on their own. Food is a basic need. Food for the patient, the child, is included in the stay. Few, if any, children are in the hospital alone – why is food for parents or other caregivers not included?
Parents of children with a critical illness, staying in the hospital with their child while their child receives life-saving care, have enough to worry about. They should not have to worry or stress about where food is, what food is available, and how much it will cost. Feeding Families Foundation, and our Parent Plate Program, was created to address this very issue. Through our Program, when parents order food for their child, they can also order food for themselves and have it delivered to their room, paid for by Feeding Families Foundation.
The Feeding Families Foundation Parent Plate Program is a simple, but effective program, that uses the existing food service infrastructure at children’s hospitals. We do not require any financial paperwork, or proof of financial need or assistance. We want to help parents stay by their child’s bedside, focused on their child’s wellbeing.
Better nutrition helps parents be more attentive and more engaged, leading to better care for their children – we experienced this first-hand. Help Feeding Families Foundation take care of food in the hospital for parents so they can stay focused on what matter most– their child.
And to those who have donated – thank you so much for your support. Together, this critical need that has been overlooked for far too long can be addressed.
Thank you,
Jeff & Sam