'Tis the Season

Dear Friends:

As you know, Advocacy for Patients provides FREE help to people with chronic illnesses nationwide. Whether it's a health or disability insurance appeal, an employment discrimination matter, a kid whose school isn't helping them battle through a bout of illness -- really anything related to chronic illness -- we work for free. It just feels wrong to charge someone in crisis; if we charged, many of the people who need our services would have nowhere to go. So providing services for free is a basic piece of our work ethic.

People ask me all the time how we get our funding. It's true that we do get a few small grants, but they are small, and they tend to fund special projects rather than our ongoing work. The people who fund our day-to-day work are clients, families, friends. We run on the $50 and $100 checks people write to us. Really.

This year, we had to hire a second lawyer to keep up with demand, and then we had to move into commercial office space because we ran out of room in my house. That means we're over budget and under income. It also means that we have to raise a lot more next year than ever before.

If you read this blog every day, if you've used our services, if you've recommended us to a friend or family member, or if you just plain like what we do, please take a moment and show your support today. Even if you can only give $10, it will help more than you know. You can donate through PayPal from our website, here. Or you can send a check to Advocacy for Patients, 195 Farmington Avenue, Suite 306, Farmington, CT 06032.

I don't post major public requests for support very often. The fact that I'm doing now is not out of choice; it's out of necessity. Without your help, we cannot keep doing what we do. So please, give generously. Thank you.

Jennifer