JACKSONVILLE, Fla – The Edith Marie Foundation helps cancer patients in multiple ways -- from offering a friend to pitching in financially.
Terrie Cooper started the foundation in Feb. 2017 in honor of her mother who lived with breast cancer for about 15 years. While her mother, Edith Marie, was battling cancer, she also helped others. After she passed, Terrie felt she needed to continue in her mother’s footsteps.
“She was actually giving money away,” Cooper said. “So she would pass money to other patients while she was being treated and she would say that this person needed her rent paid, this person needed some food or this person needed their light bill or their water bill paid. So that’s what our organization focuses on.”
Every month, local hospitals nominate patients for help to the Edith Marie Foundation. The foundation then gives patients what they call a “love grant.”
“Right now we’re only able to assist a family for one particular month,” Cooper said. “So there able to get that one month of whatever assistance that there needing, whether it be housing, utilities, or food, or all three if the funding is there for us to service all three.”
Cooper said she started this foundation because she wanted to take care of people in her own backyard.
“Jacksonville is often forgotten when it comes to a lot of large organizations were a hidden gem that’s often overlooked. When It comes to the basic necessities of those household expenses, those are things not taken care of.”
Melissa Wright is one of the patients the Edith Marie Foundation has helped and said she’s beyond thankful for it.
“When they heard the news they immediately reached out to me,” Wright said. “I’m a giver and so I was in a place where suddenly I wasn’t able to give anything and I needed help and I didn’t really know how to ask for help so I’m so glad that my mutual friend connected me to them because I wouldn’t have asked for help. I probably wouldn’t even known where to start -- but I’m thankful for them.”
“These women become family to us, become family to me and it makes it personal,” Cooper said.
Terri’s goal is to reach a point where the foundation can help others for three months or more instead of the one month it is limited to now.
To learn more about the foundation or donate you can check out their website.