A Message from George Wolf, President and Chairman of the Greg Wolf Fund
During the many hours Greg and I filled with conversation during his hospital stays, Greg often asked me “why is it that millions of dollars are raised to fight cancer and not more of it gets to the patients?”
We both saw first hand how cancer did not discriminate — neither sex, race, creed, or education mattered, nor did how much money you had or did not have bear any relevance to whom cancer chose as a victim. Cancer knows no boundaries, permeating any lifestyle or daily life. Many cancer victims are forced to fight the battle with little or no money, much too often without insurance. Sometimes, it’s only a few dollars the patient needs to provide bus fare for a family member to visit or a few hundred dollars to buy a prescription, and yet sometimes its millions of dollars needed to continue to fund the research for blood diseases of all types.
And that’s what we do best.
The Greg Wolf Fund gets the money directly to the patients for whatever their needs whenever they need it. QUICKLY. We fund cancer research as well, specifically for blood diseases, such as leukemia and lymphoma and other related blood cancers.
How do we do it?
We establish the presence of our fund within the Oncology floors of hospitals. We empower nurses, doctors and hospital administrators to be the guardians of the funds to expend the money where they see the needs in their everyday care of leukemia and lymphoma patients. WHY? Because the hospital caregivers, who give so much of themselves, see the needs firsthand. They know when a grandmother misses her grandchildren and “doesn’t want them to see me this way”; they know the urgency experienced when an antibiotic is needed for a child with both a low white-cell count and a fever, but has no insurance and no money with which to pay for the necessary medicine. Our fund’s primary concern lies with the patient, we believe the grandmother needs to see her grandchildren during her hospital stay, not after, and the child needs the antibiotic then, not later.
In the 3 short years of our existence, The Greg Wolf Fund has given over $30,000 in research grants, $10,000 in individual grants to blood disease victims allowing payment for simple bills while patients were out of work, and thousands of dollars have been allocated directly to hospital oncology floors to be designated for patients’ needs.
The Greg Wolf Fund has NO overhead, and as such, ALL monies contributed go directly to patients or research causes. The Board of Directors and Officers of The Greg Wolf Fund make all the decisions as to where to direct the monies contributed to the fund. The advantage our fund has over others, is our complete lack of bureaucracy. In the past few years, we have sent funding within 24 hours after learning of a patient’s needs. Most requests come directly to us from the doctors and nurses providing the medical care to the recipients. Use of each and every dollar distributed from the fund is closely tracked to ensure that such donated monies are used for the purposes intended – the patient’s care.
The beauty of The Greg Wolf Fund lies with its architect — the fund was Greg’s idea. We lost Greg after an incredible 27 month journey battling leukemia. Throughout his entire fight, Greg never thought of himself, but always of others. Greg was, and always will be, “a man for others.” The Greg Wolf Fund, bearing his name and carrying on his spirit of giving, still needs the help of others to continue its purpose.
Contributions from all those who share Greg’s vision are welcome and necessary to carry on our fight, until we WIPE OUT LEUKEMIA FOREVER.
For Greg