The Sam Goldenberg Patient and Family Support Fund

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It is said that you never truly know someone until you've walked a mile in his shoes.  Well, around these parts, a lot of kids knew Sam Goldenberg. 

Driving to work one day, Sam noticed a young boy walking to school in bare feet.  Sam stopped, inquired of the boy's situation and learned he had no shoes.  Intending to give the boy a pair of shoes from his retail store's warehouse, Sam and his wife Joyce washed the young lad's feet.  It was then they noticed that one foot was two sizes larger than the other.  They took the boy to the hospital where several shards of glass were found embedded in his foot.  Doctors estimated that head another day or two passed, the boy would have lost his foot. 

Instead, he ended up perfectly healthy and the proud owner of a brand-spanking-new pair of PRO-Keds.  This was the first of hundreds of pairs of shoes Sam Goldenberg donated to underprivileged kids.  And it was just one of thousands of equally kind gestures from a man who dedicated his life to, as he once said, "...simply helping people."

Sam began volunteering for Covenant Hospice in 1992, working tirelessly as a dedicated fund-raiser and end-of-life caregiver, until his own passing in May of 2009. 

We have established the Sam Goldenberg Patient and Family Support Fund to honor Sam's generous and selfless heart.  This fund helps families overcome difficult financial obstacles while going through the process of losing a loved one.  It's a last resort to provide help when all other resources have been exhausted.  And it helps Covenant Hospice keep our promise to provide care to every patient, regardless of his or her ability to pay.

The donation you make will be used to help with little things, like paying a family's electric bill to keep the air conditioning on for a patient receiving home hospice care.  Providing basic groceries for a large family caring for a terminally ill mom or dad.  Building a simple wheelchair ramp so a patient can spend his or her final days at home.  Covering a burial fee.  Or simply providing a pair of shoes. 

In other words, the little things we'd all be happy to help with if we just knew how. 

Last year, Covenant Hospice provided indigent medical care to more than 1,000 patients and their families, totaling $1.9 million.  Approximately $30,000 of that went toward meeting basic needs like those described above.  However, in these difficult times, these needs have become even greater, and we need your help to increase this amount for the coming year. 

We're not asking you to walk in another man's shoes, just to follow in his footsteps.  Consider a donation to the Sam Goldenberg Patient and Family Support Fund.