Lemonade Fund staff at the ALL.CAN 2025 Conference. To my right: Elana Alpert. To my left:, COO Yael Levy and Ilana Joseph

I have often said that if government social services were doing their job, we could close the Lemonade Fund. I could retire and learn to play bridge and our staff could find better paying jobs in hi-tech 🙂

I also know that certain societal ills are entrenched, like poverty.  And this will always be a challenge. Not just in Israel but across the globe. And I also know that we can’t fix all that with emergency subsistence grants to women suffering financial hardship after a diagnosis of breast or gynecological cancer. Just like government agencies can’t make entrenched poverty disappear. 

Last week I learned something very powerful and very empowering at the 2nd annual ALL.CAN Conference on “Minding the Inequality Gap”. The conference program was centered on a platform to curate dozens of new ideas to make cancer care better and more accessible. That brought 200+ NGOs and physicians and social workers and policy makers together to brainstorm ideas for new and creative initiatives to close inequality gaps. 

What I learned was that just like certain societal ills are entrenched, like poverty, the desire to do good and creativity  

People whose desire to bring goodness, to see, are just as entrenched here. goodness and to help those in need is deeply entrenched. “Chemla” (lovingkindness) is in their DNA; and in the DNA of the organizations, NGOs, and even the government committees they founded or work in to overcome the inequality gaps in cancer care. 

Creativity and innovation is another thing entrenched deeply in the tapestry that is Israel. This community of innovators proposed a myriad of ideas – real practical ideas – on how to close inequality gaps in oncology care. Each idea was presented in synopsis form and together in small working groups, we brainstormed their feasibility, explored their merits, challenged the obstacles, and of course, argued heatedly (and loudly) over the details! We filled blank canvases with even more ideas that popped up as we evaluated the proposals before we convened to review the results and plan the next steps. 

When you combine entrenched commitment to see and do good, with entrenched creativity and drive, there is no limit to what can be done. No matter how badly we may think a government agency operates, or how cumbersome the bureaucracy has become. 

I am not naive. Far from it. There are many many problems, and many many inequalities in Israeli cancer care. We know this from 15 years of seeing first hand the devastating financial hardship a cancer diagnosis can bring. But we also know that Lemonade Fund grants to these women help. In the supermarket and in the hearts of patients who struggle to hold on to hope. That’s what keeps us going. It’s in our DNA. 

That’s what the ALL.CAN Israel initiative is all about. It’s even in the name! The Lemonade Fund is proud to be part of a community that embraces the idea that we all can do something.  To be part of the solution rather than to wring our hands and complain about how much others are not NOT doing. Together we see good and through that lens, we see possibilities. 

So retirement can wait a bit. It’s a privilege to still be a part of something so wonderful.

The post Being part of the solution is a privilege first appeared on Lemonade Fund.

September is Gynecological Cancer Awareness and with approximately 7,000 women diagnosed with gynecological malignancies and pre-cancerous conditions in Israel every year, this is incredibly important. We are beginning to understand the urgency for financial aid for these patients in our community. 

Our partner social workers report that the financial effects of these malignancies for women – especially young women – is significant. In fact, last month the Lemonade Fund awarded a grant to a minor for the very first time. A 17-year old high school student with ovarian cancer. This young woman’s entire life, and that of her entire family, has been put on hold so her mother can be at her side during the difficult treatments. With the parents unable to work, the financial ramifications have literally brought this family to its knees. We are very grateful to be able to help the family in a way that will alleviate some of their stress.

But the fact is, these diseases are insidious and often diagnosed late. And they are particularly difficult emotionally. Updated screening has led to many cases diagnosed in pre-cancerous stages, and this proves even more that awareness is key. We have more to learn and I can only hope that through diligence, awareness and knowledge, fewer patients will be diagnosed at such a late stage. 

The Lemonade Fund is proud to collaborate with “Habait Shel Bar” in bringing more information about these diseases to Israeli women.

The post Awareness. Diligence. Knowledge. first appeared on Lemonade Fund.

I come here once a year to write personally. Not as the Founder and Director of the Lemonade Fund, but as my younger self who went to my yearly routine mammogram in the summer of 2010 only to learn that I likely had breast cancer. The diagnosis was confirmed two days later, on July 20, 2010 (9 Av 5770) That was the day when my life turned upside down.

It’s not easy to think back on that time. It would be easier to let these memories fade away. Thank God, I recovered and am healthy (and as of this year, a grandmother!) I’ve been fortunate to have 15 good years and merit many blessings for which I will always be grateful.

So why revisit that dark place each year? I go there, together with you, for the sake of the people who are newly diagnosed. Let me explain.

Anyone who has had cancer remembers the feelings of utter loneliness and desolation that come with the diagnosis. Cancer is frightening. But even more than that, it is isolating. Even with all of the communal and family support in the world (if one is lucky enough to have it,) the only one who actually is ill is the patient. The surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, etc., happen to just one body only. The patient’s. Treatments are often deforming, debilitating and life-changing. They’re hopefully curative, but the journey is long and there are no guarantees. And it is a solo journey.

I was diagnosed with cancer on the 9th of Av, the saddest day in the Jewish calendar. A day commemorating historical tragedies suddenly seemed to mirror my own. There is a Jewish tradition to hope that this day, the 9th of Av, will one day be transformed into the happiest day of the year. Never a believer in coincidence, I embraced that tradition in my heart, and fast tracked the concept of turning destruction into reconstruction, desolation into consolation by establishing the Lemonade Fund (Israel’s first and only emergency financial relief nonprofit for women with breast and now gynecological cancers.) We are celebrating our 14th anniversary this summer… Fourteen years of giving hope, in the form of financial assistance, to the most vulnerable Israeli cancer patients.

I am incredibly proud that as a community, as a country, we haven’t lost the ability to really SEE and SUPPORT each other, especially during these last two years challenged by war and suffering. Memory produces empathy; in war and in illness. We feel the pain of those who have lost loved ones during this war and we pray for the safe return of all of our hostages. And we deeply feel the pain of the woman in Metula, the Negev and in Tel Aviv who is alone with a new cancer diagnosis. We cannot make her less alone on her journey, but we can help her feel less lonely by showing her that we know how she feels, because we were there once, too.

And that is why I come back here once a year. To remember, to feel deeply and to connect. Thank you for coming back with me each year.

The post 9th of Av 5785 (2025) first appeared on Lemonade Fund.

Yael Levy, Lemonade Fund COO & Shari Mendes, Lemonade Fund Founder and Executive Director with the Good People Fund delegation

It was so refreshing to meet with Naomi Eisenberger and Julie Fischer and their team from the Good People Fund on their annual trip to Israel last month. We shared with them our plans to expand reach, our migration to online applications and plans to help even more patients maintain dignity throughout their cancer journey.

Their confidence in our work, and the resilience of all the wonderful NGOs they support, is inspiring. Understandably, all of us in Israel have been bogged down by the heaviness of the ongoing hostage crisis and fears of renewed fighting. Our reflection in their eyes, how we appear as we continue on our mission to affect change and build a better future, shines a light on our resilience that sometimes gets lost.

Thank you to the good people of The Good People Fund for lifting our spirits. Your visit during these hard times helps us keep our vision in sight, and helps us keep faith in our work.

The post Together with Good People  first appeared on Lemonade Fund.

Thanks to Guy Tavori and the ALL.CAN-Israel initiative, Lemonade Fund representatives attended a special session of the Knesset Health Committee on the challenges of closing gaps to provide quality oncology services in the periphery. The session took place as part of the ALL.CAN-Israel conference to mark World Cancer Day 2025 at the Knesset. 

While protocols and recordings of committee meetings are easily accessible from the Knesset archives, there was something special about attending a session on this issue in person as representatives of the Lemonade Fund. 

In attendance were several MKs representing constituents most affected by the inequalities in Israel’s underserved areas. To hear their expressions of frustration and heartfelt concern was painful. But most prominent, and perhaps most important, was what we learned from representatives from working groups charged by the Ministry of Health to come up with viable solutions to close gaps in underserved areas. Prof. Ido Wolf and Dr. Hana Shroder presented data from the Ministry’s work to map the needs across the country and recommend policies to meet those needs. 

Prof. Wolf outlined the evolution of oncology care from a singly focused discipline to a truly multidisciplinary one and illustrated this with a startling statistic: 59% of all cancer treatments are delivered in four major hospitals in Israel’s central region. All within a small geographic radius: Ichalov, Beilinson, Sheba dnd Rambam (Haifa). In these centers each patient’s case is evaluated by a multidisciplinary team of oncological surgeons, oncologists, and other specialists. This is the ONLY way to optimize modern treatment protocols that require expertise in immunology, internal medicine, surgery, endocrinology, reproductive medicine and so much more. 

Physicians understand this need. And as the numbers show, so do patients. The vast majority of patients from Israel’s periphery CHOOSE to travel to the center of the country. Despite the economic and social burden this places on them  and on their families. 

Do the tertiary medical centers in Israel’s periphery not want to provide this standard of care? Of course they want to. 

To address this with one-dimensional calls demanding more money, more imaging equipment, and more affordable public transportation is only a fraction of the equation. And that’s what lies at the root of the problem.

In the committee room the “unity of concern” was poignant. But the comments and demands for more (of everything), alongside the long and disappointing record of healthcare policy failure in periphery communities, do not bode well for a “unity of solution.” Because as Prof. Wolf so eloquently explained: this is not a problem that more money can solve alone. More physician positions also is not enough. Nor more buses or trains or parking spots in the train stations! 

It requires finding integrated, seamless ways to allocate the precious resources of the multidisciplinary centers across the entire country. It requires out of the box solutions to work together, not populistic ones, to bring this expertise to the treatment rooms in Israel’s north and south. The work the Planning and Strategy Division is doing to map these resources is vital. But the real battle will be in finding consensus to implement their recommendations. That rise above politics, egos and populism. 

That’s the “unity of solution” the Lemonade Fund and other NGOs in the ALL.CAN community strive for. That our work will become less vital to the health and well-being of so many. 

The post We ALL.CAN first appeared on Lemonade Fund.

In 2024 the Lemonade Fund awarded a record number of grants to underprivileged Israeli cancer patients in order to alleviate their financial stress. The Lemonade Fund, (Israel’s first and only breast cancer emergency relief fund,) provides newly diagnosed patients with financial grants while they are in treatment so they can make ends meet and focus on recovery. We are now operating throughout the country, having helped a record number of patients (451) in 2024.

As we begin our work in 2025, we intend to make even more lemonade out of lemons. Beginning in January 2025, the Lemonade Fund is expanding beyond breast cancer, now awarding emergency financial relief to women with gynecological cancers (ovarian, endometrial, uterine and cervical) who need our help.

Expanding to help more people has been our dream. We could not have come so far without generous support of so many.

The post 2024 in Numbers first appeared on Lemonade Fund.

I learned a great deal from a recent webinar entitled “Managing Financial Toxicity: Addressing the Hidden Costs of Cancer” hosted by our colleague and supporter Shareshet, the national organization for the U.S. Jewish Breast & Ovarian Cancer community. There were lots of facts and figures, up-to-date research, and as expected from such a wonderful organization, a lot of encouragement and positive support. But the most important takeaway for me, as the founder of the Lemonade Fund, was this: Israel’s national health service is a blessing.

Of course, our public system has no shortage of challenges and problems. Long waiting lists, painfully inefficient bureaucracy. And a bedside manner that often leaves much to be desired. 

But the safety net it provides, and that has been protected so adamantly by every government since Israel’s founding, is testimony to the inherent values that inspire and maintain it.

The webinar highlighted some very disturbing trends. In the U.S., financial toxicity affects one in four cancer patients. Most of the immediate causes are from upfront medical bills and treatment costs. These are followed closely by monetary and time costs: like loss of income, utility costs, childcare and transportation to treatments. 

The presenters highlighted another even more worrying fact: the direct causal relationship between financial distress and adverse health outcomes. 

On the flip side, the experts shared initiatives designed to reduce the risk of financial toxicity. A Senior Director from the Patient Advocate Foundation shared a wealth of available resources and programs to help patients in the U.S. Dr. Margaret Liang, Associate Professor at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles shared research on new systems and screening tools that are in actual clinical trials to learn how to reduce this very significant risk factor. 

Dr. Liang’s work reinforced what we at the Lemonade Fund, and the social workers we work closely with, have believed for a long time, based on our work with thousands of patients since 2011. 

While our excellent national healthcare system goes a long long way in alleviating the risk of serious financial toxicity, it is a mistake for physicians and healthcare policy makers to think that this eliminates the problem altogether. Or that this problem is not a genuine medical concern in Israel.  

Thankfully Israeli cancer patients do not have to make heart-wrenching decisions to forgo paying rent to get life-saving drugs or treatments. But screening tools for distress, financial toxicity, and financial needs can and need to be implemented in Israel’s public healthcare system to reduce the risks of financial distress from monetary and time costs to improve outcomes and ease the burden on social welfare agencies.

The post Financial Toxicity: A Serious Risk Factor first appeared on Lemonade Fund.

A study published by researchers from the Radiation Oncology Department, Samson Assuta Ashdod University Hospital, the Faculty of Medicine at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the School of Behavioral Sciences at the Academic College of Tel-Aviv Yaffo revealed how the attack by Hamas on Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023 and ongoing war could be detrimental to cancer care in general, and to radiation therapy in particular. Radiation therapy requires rigorous adherence to a fixed daily schedule of sessions at major medical centers. This presented unique and serious challenges for cancer patients. Travel was limited (or even forbidden in certain areas), patients were evacuated far from their primary care centers, spouses and caregivers were often unavailable because they were drafted into the reserves. All this caused unprecedented fear and anxiety that could result in non-compliance to treatment protocols. 

Considerable attention was immediately focused on the medical system. Only 2 tertiary facilities in southwestern Israel provide radiotherapeutic services: Soroka Medical Center in Beer Sheva and Assuta Ashdod, located less than 25 miles from the Gaza strip.As Assuta, the researchers document the efforts taken to assure continuity of care during this period despite incessant missile attack and the relationship between these actions and the willingness of patients to continue their treatments. 

They found that forty-seven patients enrolled in this study reported a significantly lower feeling of personal safety during wartime in comparison with the confidence in the professionalism of the staff. But patients also perceived that the impact of the national situation on their health was very low and analysis revealed that the desire to continue treatment in general and to continue treatment at the same department were significantly related to trust in the staff’s professionalism. They concluded that creating deep, trusting relationships between the patients and the medical staff have the potential to override the obstacle of fear of war poses to providing daily radiation therapy. 

Encouraging research indeed. The empirical evidence to strengthen training and methods in other medical centers. 

Aligned with these findings, the Israel Lemonade Fund redoubled efforts in partnership with frontline medical centers to be part of building that trust and confidence. Logistic concerns were very real, with serious consequences like costly transport to hospitals for daily radiation treatments. In just three short weeks, the Lemonade Fund distributed 133 Wartime Emergency Grants totaling NIS 239,400 ($61,845) for transportation for evacuees, childcare for families with drafted soldiers and immediate supplemental income. What we learned from this is that an emergency financial safety net can significantly reduce fear  and anxiety. Thanks to this research, we have the empirical evidence that this can help facilitate better compliance and continuity of care.

It is difficult to imagine “the day after” in the war against Hamas and Hezbollah when over 100 hostages remain in captivity and our towns, villages and cities are subject to missile, rocket and drone attacks on a daily basis. But we promise to use our experience to effect changes needed to provide ongoing oncology care and the financial crises that come in its wake.

The post Financial Safety Net to Ensure Continuity of Care During War first appeared on Lemonade Fund.

Thirteen years ago this week I was diagnosed with breast cancer during a routine mammogram. Out of the blue…no risks, no family history – ‘shocked’ is an understatement.

And suddenly I found myself in a world of illness, isolation and fear. Thank God, I had good care and support and I am fine all of these years later, now awaiting the birth of our first grandchildren. I cannot find the words to express my gratitude for this blessing and all of the others along the way.

In 2010/2011, in waiting rooms and hospitals, I noticed suffering that had been invisible to me before. 

• I witnessed a woman at the breast center who was dirty and so foul-smelling that no one would sit near her. It turned out that she was sick and too poor to afford a washing machine, and her clothes reeked of vomit. 
• I began to hear stories of single mothers, elderly women, young families…who were struggling with the extra, non-medical costs of having breast cancer. 
• I saw women with Stage 4 cancer facing eviction and others foregoing treatment because they couldn’t afford the cost of extra childcare.

I saw how expensive it was to be sick, and I couldn’t imagine how the poor coped. Turns out they mostly cannot.  

The Israel Lemonade Fund was formed in my backyard with a small group of friends and neighbors in August 2011, on the anniversary of that fateful mammogram. We raised money, made a system to vet qualified patients and gave our first grants that September at Meir Hospital in Kfar Saba.

Since then the Lemonade Fund has expanded to every corner of the country, helping thousands of cancer patients with one-time emergency grants. We have become the known Israeli safety net for needy breast cancer patients, Israel’s only breast cancer emergency relief fund. 

13 years later we still do not rent offices – staff and volunteers all work from home. We have kept our infrastructure lean and efficient so that donations can go from the hand of the donor to the hand of the recipient. 

Since October 7, the Lemonade Fund has upped our activity, given extra wartime grants, responding to the urgent needs of cancer patients who have:

• Been evacuated from their homes, moved far from treatment centers.
• Lost critical family support due to distance, army service or, sadly, death.
• Gone bankrupt or lost jobs due to the economic impact of the war.
• Families who need extra help due to trauma.

We will mark the fast of Tisha B’Av next week, formerly the most tragic day in Jewish tradition. Sadly we have a new day to add, but we are a people with fortitude and strength and we will rebuild, dance and laugh again. This is who we are.

The 9th of Av happens to be the anniversary of my breast cancer diagnosis and with each passing year, I see how a day of sadness can be transformed into a day of celebration, of life, of doing good together as a nation. Turning lemons into lemonade.

May we be strong and united as never before.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart to all our supporters,

-Shari

The post I Come Here Once a Year to Remember… first appeared on Lemonade Fund.

Lillian D. Wald, Harris & Ewing collection at the Library of Congress

June is usually a “slow” month. The school year winds down, summer plans are hatched, and  the heat invariably rises as we usher in the Israeli summer. 

This June is different. The ongoing war is taking a toll on everyone; it’s hard to plan amid so much uncertainty. Some evacuees, whose communities in the south were not destroyed, have been allowed to return ‘home.’ But red alerts are still blaring there, children are still running to shelters. The 100,000 residents displaced from the north are living in limbo, waiting to see if war will begin any minute. Even the weather is unprecedented. We are experiencing a heat wave of historic proportions, literally turning much of the northern region under rocket fire into a blazing inferno. And the captives remain in captivity with no end in sight to this unbearable situation.

The number of applications to the Lemonade Fund continues to increase, keeping us busy – but concerned – that the economic effects of the war are going to become more of a challenge. (Applications are up 28% in the first half of 2024 compared to 2023.)

But June 2024 brought some exciting and positive things that I am really grateful to share.  

At the Lemonade Fund, we were honored to be named the recipient of a $10,000 grant from the Lillian Fund, the women’s giving circle associated with the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Hartford (Connecticut). The Lillian Fund honors the accomplishments of Lillian D. Wald,a Jewish woman who championed the rights of Eastern European immigrants living on New York’s Lower East Side at the turn of the century. She dedicated her life’s work to advocating for women’s issues, child welfare reform, public health issues and world peace.The giving circle share a vision of a world in which all women and children have equal opportunity for professional and personal achievement. They support this by awarding annual grants to a wide range of charities and social initiatives. This year, on their 25th anniversary, they recognized the common goals of the Lemonade Fund with the inspirational story of their founder, who took action to help those challenged by both illness and poverty over 100 years ago. 

In addition, we are grateful to have been selected to join the The Good People Fund family, a foundation that seeks out good people doing great work⎯on a personal scale⎯and supports creative efforts to help those in need. 

To be recognized by these particular organizations, is both humbling and encouraging. What they share is the value and belief in the small steps every individual can take to make the world a better place. Our staff makes this vision a reality every day. We could never do it without every individual supporter, alongside these generous foundations that recognize the inherent value of what each and every one of us can contribute. And in these difficult times, this gives us hope. 

The post The Bright Side of (this) Israeli Summer first appeared on Lemonade Fund.