Doing Good: The HOPE Foundation

Jessica Keeton and her husband Kasey never planned to temporarily move to Memphis to treat their 2-year-old daughter Ellie’s stage three brain cancer at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. But Springfield-based HOPE Foundation did.

The HOPE Foundation helps families with expenses they categorize as “everyday bills” like rent, utilities and gas, among other things. Kandice White, founder and executive director, and Kasey know from first hand experience how things like mortgage payments are put on the back burner when your kid is sick. Their daughter was diagnosed with stage four cancer in 2007. “We discovered that there was a gap in the resource system for families like ours,” White says. “We just decided to fill that gap [and] bridge that gap between other organizations and insurance. Where they fall short, we help fill in to help these families get through these financial situations.”

Sometimes filling in looks like lending a listening ear to the parents and sometimes it looks like giving families a lifeline so they can afford to be with their kid.

Throughout the first months of Ellie’s chemo and radiation treatments, Keeton and Kasey were able to stay with Ellie in Memphis. The HOPE Foundation helped them cover their bills during this time. “Her treatment was so intense, it took both of us to be there,” Keeton says.

For families and mothers like Keeton, it’s more than just a helping hand. “It is like a weight lifted off your shoulders knowing that you have something to fall back onto,” Keeton says. 

The beauty of this foundation lies in the broadness of what it can help with. Unlike insurance and other organizations that can pay for portions of treatments or help with lodging, the HOPE Foundation keeps their wording broad and their impact large.

When starting the foundation, it was important to White and her husband that the bylaws were vague to ensure their board would have the opportunity to decide what was categorized as a “pediatric emergency” in order to help as many people as possible.

“We cover those hardwood floors for a kiddo that was in an accident and permanently in a wheelchair,” White says. “Those aren’t things that you think about and there’s no organization that I’m aware of out there that covers those kinds of things. He can’t roll around on carpet, so we covered to have all new hardwood flooring put in.”

On top of providing financial support so families can focus on helping their children, the HOPE Foundation also provides something invaluable: understanding. “They know what you’re going through because they’ve done it,” Keeton says. “They know the feeling, they know the loneliness.”

White and her husband know the unknown because they’ve lived it. When their daughter was going through treatment in Memphis, White was without a job for almost a year. Being a mother became her full-time role as she focused on her daughter’s health. This memory fuels White and her dedication to helping families dealing with similar situations.

Every year, the HOPE Foundation supports anywhere from 30 to 50 families, giving them a sliver of peace of mind while they navigate unimaginable hardships. Around 85% of the families they assist are on Medicaid and are living paycheck to paycheck. “We are not nationwide; we are not statewide,” White says. “When you donate dollars, it goes right to your community.”