Supporting Friends of Karen
At fresh&co, we have made a commitment to our customers to always serve fresh, creative, and healthy meals. We have also made a commitment to our community, which is why we are an avid supporter of Friends of Karen.
Friends of Karen offer emotional, financial, and advocacy support for children with a life-threatening illness and their families in order to help keep them stable, functioning, and able to cope. In 2018 alone, Friends of Karen helped 1500 children and their families.
The financial assistance Friends of Karen offers is meant to help ease the enormous costs for a family, from travel costs to and from treatments and hospitals, basic living expenses when there is a loss of income from work disruptions due to the child’s illness, gift cards to purchase food, and medical expenses not covered by insurance.
In addition to providing financial assistance to ease the enormous costs of a devastating diagnosis, the organization also offers individualized support to families and siblings during a crisis that affects every member of the family, including social workers, child life specialists to help siblings cope better with the changes in their family’s life, and end-of-life bereavement support for parents and siblings. Friends of Karen was able to help 125 siblings that received one-on-one support in 2018.
As a family-owned restaurant group, we understand the importance of family. Friends of Karen has been making life easier for families in the New York tri-state area since 1978 and we are honored to be a part of the larger friends of Karen community.
This past September, we made it part of our mission to support Friends of Karen during childhood cancer awareness month by matching customer donations at the register. We were able to donate $30,000 this year to the organization, helping to lessen the burden of nearly 631 families Friends of Karen supports each year.
Throughout the year we plan to continue our partnership with the organization by providing resources, donations, and in-kind support. You can find more information about Friends of Karen, or ways to donate, here – https://www.friendsofkaren.org/