An average treatment cost can be approximately half a million dollars per child.

How We Help

When a child is diagnosed with cancer, the intensive treatment regimen frequently requires a parent’s full-time attention. In many cases, a parent finds it impossible to continue working while they care for their sick child. This loss of income combined with the increased costs associated with cancer treatment leads to severe financial problems for many families.

And that’s where we come in—to help with the daunting non-medical costs.

How To Apply

Families of children in treatment are eligible to apply for funds to pay for needed expenditures such as rent, mortgage, utilities, bills, childcare and transportation to and from the hospital. Applications are made through the child’s social worker who assesses need and priority.

We need to stress that Michael’s Way does not take personal requests from families. We only accept applications through the social workers at our dedicated hospitals.

Social workers submit family payment requests. The request includes a cover letter from the social worker providing a brief description of the patient’s medical condition as well as the creditors and amounts to be paid on behalf of the patient, copies of the bills to be paid, and two application forms generated by Michael’s Way.

The Michael’s Way accountant (a volunteer) verifies the patient has not exceeded the annual limit set by Michael’s Way and issues checks directly to the vendors. The checks along with each request are sent to a member of the board of directors who approves the payments and signs the checks.

A status report is sent to the social worker for each patient request detailing the vendor name, amount paid and approval status (approved/denied). Each institution also receives a monthly report detailing the amount spent that month, the year-to-date amount spent and the remainder of the committed amount for that year.

The current amount of funding spent on behalf of a family is $4,000. We have found that most foundations that do the same thing as us have a much smaller limit, ranging anywhere from $100 – $1,000.

Each year following the golf tournament, the Board of Directors determines how much funding will go to each hospital in the following year.

Michael’s Way currently works with social workers from:

• A.I. DuPont Hospital for Children
• Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
• St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children
• The Specialty Care Center of Lehigh Valley
• The Ronald McDonald Houses of Philadelphia
• Levine Children’s Hospital of Charlotte, NC