The Shannon Mosher 
Memorial Foundation, Inc.
Save a Life Tomorrow ~ Live in Great Hope Today

Foundation News 

From the desk of Stuart Mosher, Executive Director:

Applying For Financial Assistance: If you are a leukemia patient who would like to be considered for limited financial aid, send an email describing your situation to: stuartmosher@aol.com, or mail it to: The Shannon Mosher Memorial Foundation, Inc. at 3589 Rock Elm Court, Auburn, GA  30011. Our Patient Assistance program provides aid in form of reimbursements for certain expenses not covered by your insurance provider.  A parent or other involved family member or friend, acting on behalf of a leukemia patient, may also assist in providing the appropriate information to the Foundation.

Foundation Update -                                    December 15, 2006

After 5 years in Ocala, FL, Teresa and I relocated back to the Atlanta, GA area about a month ago. The key reasons driving the move were the arrival of our first grandchild this past January, Corban Tabeal Mosher (Tal), and to be closer to Teresa's mom and other family members in the area. Our son, Scott, and his wife, Christy, live in Forsyth County and Teresa's mother lives in the Covington, GA area. Teresa's dad died just a few days before Tal was born. We are having a house built in Northeast Gwinnett County, about halfway between Scott, Christy and Tal and Teresa's mom. We'll actually have an Auburn, GA address:  3589 Rock Elm Court, Auburn, GA  30011.

We'll continue to maintain the Foundation, and we'll try to always have enough funds on hand to provide financial assistance to as many leukemia patients, as possible. We can only do this through the generous contributions from family members, friends and others.

Please consider making a contribution to the General Fund of the Foundation to help support our Patient Assistance program. 100% of all General Fund contributions are redirected back to leukemia patients in form of reimbursement checks for expenses that are not covered by their insurance. 

NOTE: Tax-deductible contributions to the Foundation may be made by sending a check or money order payable to :

The Shannon Mosher Memorial Foundation, Inc., c/o Treasurer, 3589 Rock Elm Court, Auburn, GA 30011. 

Foundation Update -                                 December 6, 2001 

Teresa and I relocated to Ocala, Florida from Atlanta in late October, and this message was sent to everyone in my email address book to update them on how we were adapting to "small town" America (compared with the mega metropolitan Atlanta area!) and on some specific Foundation activities:

Greetings from Ocala! We’ve been very busy finalizing plans for our lot purchase and house construction. Saturday we took time out to enjoy the annual Christmas parade in downtown Ocala. We didn’t see a town pig in the parade (for those of you who saw the movie Doc Hollywood), but there were floats, local bands, beauty queens and even 8 of those huge Budweiser horses!! It was very nice, and I believe the paper projected close to 60,000 people would be there (the Florida Gators were getting Rocky Topped by Tennessee in Gainesville, about 30 miles away, or it might have been a larger gathering).

I wanted to give you a brief update on what we’ve been doing during our transition from Atlanta to Ocala with regard to The Shannon Mosher Memorial Foundation. Prior to our decision in June to relocate we had been involved with 5 bone marrow drives this year, the last one being the inaugural annual drive held in Shannon's memory on May 12. While we haven't been focused on other drives since then, we have been able to help several leukemia patients going through an ordeal similar to that experienced by Shannon and our extended family during 1999 - 2000.

As many of you know, the Foundation was incorporated as a 501(c)(3) non-profit tax-exempt entity for the expressed goals of increasing the number of bone marrow donors on the national registries; increasing leukemia and bone marrow transplant research; and, assisting other leukemia patients. I’d like to give you a more detailed update concerning the patient assistance aspect of our goals. 

The primary way we try to assist leukemia patients is to make available limited financial aid grants to cover some of the on-going expenses many insurance plans don t cover. There is a wide range of expenses for which the Foundation can reimburse a patient for expenses they’ve incurred, such as prescription co-pays and parking, and/or we can pay directly a patient's premiums for cobra insurance or even pay a service provider for items such as the cleansing and sanitizing of the patient's home prior to the patient's return following a bone marrow transplant.

Because of our limited resources and desire to help as many patients as possible, we've established a guideline of providing up to $1,000 for an individual patient in any 12-month period. Since mid-June, our Foundation has received and approved 7 Grant Applications from patients being treated at the Bone Marrow Transplant Group of Georgia (BMT); another application is pending. The first patient was approved 6/11/01, and we were able to send three reimbursement checks totaling $750 before, sadly, his death in late August. Of the $6,000 in grants approved for the other 6 patients since then, we’ve disbursed checks totaling $2,657 and presently have $2,383 in available funds to cover some of the subsequent expenses they incur. Of course, our sincere desire is to also be in position to provide financial assistance to many other patients in the months and years ahead.

The Financial Coordinator with BMT, Twylah Harper, sent me a very encouraging note last month, and I asked her if I could share part of it with you.  Twylah wrote: We get so many great comments about your Foundation that I want to say thank you again for all of the help you give patients. I have searched high and low for available programs and can't find them or they don't offer anything to the patient other than education information, hotlines for supportive care, etc. I am so glad for what you do. If you only offered $5.00, your program is still awesome!!

As you plan your year-end giving, we would ask you to prayerfully consider a gift to the Foundation. You can be assured that your gift will provide a tangible benefit to someone facing a very real need. Your tax-deductible gift can be sent to: The Shannon Mosher Memorial Foundation, 3210 SE 24th Avenue, Ocala, FL 34471. Our phone number is (352) 867-1985, and our fax number is (352) 867-1934.

With heartfelt wishes for a blessed holiday season.

Stuart 

Foundation Update - January 25, 2001 

I wanted to share several things about the activities of The Shannon Mosher Memorial Foundation as we enter our initial full year as a leukemia/bone marrow transplant focused 501 (c)(3) non-profit corporation. Last fall after incorporating and while obtaining the requisite tax-exempt approval letter from the Internal Revenue Service, we began developing a strategy that would help fulfill the Foundation’s primary mission. While our Regular Board of Directors was in place, we felt it would be important to develop an Advisory Board of Directors who would lend some tangible support to our efforts, as well as add some credibility to the Foundation’s mission. In this regard, we have an interest in attracting a few high-profile individuals, including sports figures, community and business leaders and others.  I believe the examples below are good indicators that God is leading us through the infancy stage of our Foundation, and that He is being faithful to our efforts to make a difference in the lives of leukemia patients and those needing a bone marrow transplant.

Providence 1: In late October I was contacted by Darren Weiner, who heard about our Foundation through the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute where Shannon was seen while in Boston.  Darren was also an acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) patient, having his bone marrow transplant the day before Shannon’s last March at the same Boston hospital. He obviously survived the ordeal and was beginning to focus on his new mission in life, while preparing to go home to Florida in a few weeks. Darren has been an NBA sports agent for about 10 years, and was driven from the day he was diagnosed to make the most of his situation (sounds a lot like Shannon’s attitude).

While this might not be Darren’s official mission statement, he shared in his first email to me that his vision included “calling upon my 10+ years of experience and contacts in representing professional athletes, in order to raise awareness for the need of bone marrow donors, and to organize donor drives around North America to save others’ lives.”  That certainly encompasses a primary focus of our Foundation, so working together seemed a natural fit. Darren agreed to serve on our Advisory Board, and he has already made some significant progress in generating interest from several NBA teams.  It’s the intent of the Foundation to assist Darren with as many bone marrow drives as possible, and to hopefully develop a long-range strategy that would include conducting drives in several cities each year. We hope to have an initial drive in Atlanta in early April. More on these exciting possibilities later.   

Providence 2: On January 9, Teresa and I stepped out of our comfort zone to attend a leukemia support group meeting led by Terri Sexton, who works for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society in Atlanta. There were a dozen or more patients there, some of whom had already received a bone marrow transplant, and we had an opportunity to share about the Foundation. We let everyone know one of our primary objectives is to help leukemia patients in any way possible, including providing some limited financial aid and helping to sponsor bone marrow drives on their behalf. 

On January 16, I received a call from a lady who had simply called the Leukemia Society seeking resources for financial aid related to a bone marrow drive her church was having for one of its members, George Miller; she happened to get Terri Sexton on the line who remembered our Foundation and referred her to me.  During our conversation, I told her  the Foundation would be able to provide a small financial gift toward the costs of the tissue typing that had to be raised by the patient’s support group and others.  I also shared some specifics about what it took at the drive we had for Shannon last February in terms of adequate volunteer support staff and processing the collection of fees paid by the bone marrow donors. Their drive was a combination blood/bone marrow drive (known as a “piggyback” drive), and it was being put together very quickly. Since no one at the church was familiar with the bone marrow drive feature, it was a great opportunity for Teresa and me to get involved. So, this past Monday we had the privilege of representing the Foundation at the drive and handling the fee collection process. In addition to the medical staff and other volunteers, four of our friends also volunteered to help at the drive.  It was a huge success, with 485 new donors processed to get added to the national bone marrow registry. In addition, 476 units of blood were taken. George and his wife, Laura, are planning another drive (bone marrow only) in early March, and our plans are be a part of that one as well.

Providence 3: While preparing to incorporate the Foundation last year, the first person to agree to serve on our Regular Board suggested I contact the oncologist who had treated her husband during a long battle with colon cancer. I found out he had recently joined a practice specializing in his passion - leukemia and bone marrow transplants.  When we spoke about the Foundation and its mission, he was very excited and agreed immediately to serve on our Regular Board. Teresa and I met with him and two other doctors in his office (Blood & Marrow Transplant Group of Georgia) last week to discuss the Foundation’s vision and focus on assisting other leukemia patients, increasing the number of donors on the national registries and increasing research funding. It was also interesting to learn that George Miller is a patient there. That same day we met a representative from the bone marrow transplant area of Northside Hospital who, also coincidentally, was helping to coordinate the bone marrow drive for George Miller. It became apparent from our visit at the doctor’s office that there are numerous leukemia patients and families who (like what Shannon and our family experienced) could benefit immediately from some limited financial aid for expenses not covered by insurance or other sources. As we are able to develop some funding sources, grants and, perhaps later, an endowment fund, it is our sincere desire to be able to provide this type assistance that can help reduce the overwhelming stress and burden that these patients face as they battle this disease. 

Please pray for us as we continue our efforts to honor Shannon by fulfilling the mission of the Foundation that she so much had hoped to be a part of upon her return to Atlanta from Boston. Also, please pray for George Miller and his family as they face the uncertainties involved in waiting for the best possible bone marrow match that would give him the greatest opportunity for a successful transplant and an extended life.  

Let’s do some good!!

Stuart Mosher