Our Last Meeting

Hello again all!

First I have to apoligize for my last rant.  Honestly one of the most emotional days of my life.  I find writing very cathartic so I appreciate the reads and the fact that none of my followers decided to un follow me after that.  So back to Forever Friends.

We had our monthly meeting on Sunday night.  We are lucky that we have a library in town that lets us have our meetings there.  So a big thank you to the Qu'Appelle Branch of the South East Regional Library.  We used to have our meetings at our houses and rotate through but then one of us always had to clean our house so this is a great alternative.  Although now that I think of it, the snacks are not as good as they used to be and sometimes we don't have snacks at all.  (I may have to bring that up...)

We had our normal house keeping to look after.  An update on the upcoming night at the casino, an update on the ticket sales for the quilt raffle, and some printing bills to pay. 

We also had applicants.  We had four applicants this month.  Amazingly enough we had all four of them come in the last week.  We are very blessed at FFOH.  Although now that I think about it, I guess we have designed it that way.  We don't have a lot of rules binding who we help.  We have been entrusted with money from our fantastic community.  Part of this trust I think is based on the fact that we try to do the right thing. 

Usually we help women.  However we got an application from a seventeen year old girl who needed a wig.  For her Grad.  In June.  Because we don't have a huge time constraint we are able to reply to her almost immediately.  She wants a wig that she can style.  Girls plan for years about grad.  Cancer should not take that away from you.  We won't let it. 

We heard from a woman that was going to face the loss of her house on Monday.  The day after our meeting.  We had to have the cashiers cheque to a courier before noon or they were sending everything to the lawyer to start foreclosure.  She had reconstructive surgery in December and then got an infection in her back and couldn't work for weeks.  We all know what it is like to get behind and then not be able to get caught back up.  She is still taking some pretty strong drugs to keep the cancer away now and for the next five years.  She works part time for minimum wage.  She can't work anymore than she does physically.  We helped her with the two payments she was behind and then with two more so she can catch her breath and heal both her heart and mind. 

We got an application from a woman that is now on palliative medication.  She was falling behind by 350 dollars a month.  We looked after the shortfall and a little extra for four months.  She is able to ask for more after four months if she needs it.  I would like to tell you more about this woman's story but her string of horrible luck is so bad that it could have only happened to one person in the last year and we don't want people to know who she is. 

Our last applicant was living on 1100 dollars a month.  She is married.  Her husband has health problems as well.  Her cancer fight was many years ago but she needed a new prosthetic.  Most of her prosthetic was covered by Sask Health because of their low income but the remainder we paid for. 

So this is the update from our last meeting.  Once again we are honoured with the trust our community has in us.  Thank you all for the ability to do this for women, for families. 

Thanks for reading.