Party for a Cause: Island Gift of Life
When someone is really sick — facing down cancer or debilitating chronic illness or maybe addiction — the morass of medical bills and insurance forms, the challenges of getting to appointments and the cost of overnight stays during treatment add extra layers of stress that can take a toll on even the healthiest people.
With that in mind, the Island Gift of Life Foundation aims to “help relieve that pressure” so people “can focus on getting well,” explained Gina Krauss, a board member who also teaches at the John M. Marshall Elementary School. The Shelter Island nonprofit provides financial assistance and other services to people with life-threatening and catastrophic illnesses on the island and in East Hampton, Southampton, and Southold Towns.
The $10,000 a year it spends to support bone marrow drives and the $40,000 or so spent on direct, tangible aid to individuals comes primarily through a single annual fund-raiser, which will be held on Saturday from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Ram’s Head Inn on Shelter Island. Tickets cost $50 and will be available at the door.
The Cheryl Hannabury Memorial Celebration of Life community cocktail party is named for the Shelter Island woman whose battle with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma gave rise to Island Gift of Life in 2001. “Her hope was to develop an organization that would assist families with the uninsured expenses incurred while treating the disease, as well as . . . the collateral expenses . . . such as travel, lodging, etc., of the family and support team,” according to the group’s website.
Eighteen years later, Island Gift of Life does that and more, offering direct monetary grants and help with travel, prescription, and insurance deductible costs and assistance with the insurance process and with negotiating bill reductions. Volunteers sort out mountains of insurance paperwork, haggle with medical billing offices, and help people find solutions to complicated problems as well as the myriad little ones that can seem overwhelming in the midst of a health crisis.
“How can a person who’s sick manage just the paperwork that comes in?” Ms. Kraus asked. She recently negotiated a reduction in a $15,000 anesthesiology bill for one patient, for example. In another case, she said, Island Gift of Life paid for a portion of costs for reconstructive surgery for a breast cancer survivor.
“Everything is on an individual basis,” Ms. Kraus said Monday, because each person’s needs are different.
Among the other recent recipients of the organization’s aid are a 7-year-old from Southampton with lymphoma and a 15-year-old lymphoma survivor from Sag Harbor whose checkups aren’t entirely covered by insurance.
“Most of our patients are from East Hampton,” Ms. Kraus said. The organization is working with more than two dozen people at the moment.
The all-volunteer group offers its services free of charge to those who need them, and encourages those in need of assistance to reach out to its board by email at [email protected] or by mail to P.O. Box 532, Shelter Island Heights 11965.
Saturday’s cocktail party will include live music by Points East, an open bar, and light bites. There will be a 50-50 raffle and a paper auction offering a chance to win a variety of gift baskets. Among the items offered in a live auction will be a weeklong stay at a villa in Tuscany; a four-day, three-night stay for 12, with a private chef and captain, at a restored lighthouse in Maine’s Penobscot Bay, and three different water excursions for four — by sail, power, and paddle — including a meal, in local waters.