Winter 2014
2013 - A Great Year
Our donors came through again! Through partnerships and fundraising 2013 was our second best fundraising year ever!
Thank you to every singe one of our donors. We would not be here and thriving were it not for you!
What did we do with the money? We expanded our presence through more hospital and hotel partnerships (see article below), made additional tweaks to our website, and garnered more users than ever before. The traffic on our site increased again this year AND we fielded more phone calls then ever.
Because of you, the word continues to get to those in need. Look out 2014!
Our Good Samaritan
Like many of you, Joe's House receives its fair share of spam. You know the ones; "send us your bank account number and we'll send you thousands of dollars". Right. So we were skeptical when we
received an email informing us that the sender wanted to make a Joe's House donation. It did not request a bank account number only our address, which is available on our website.
To our astonishment and excitement a check arrived several months later. Wow, not only was it not spam it was a very, very generous donation. Our benefactor was Kelly and here is the reason she choose to donate the money she raised via golf tournament to Joe's House.
"I choose Joe's House after corresponding with other melanoma patients while I was having treatment at Mass General. I went from Stage I melanoma to Stage IIIB in a short six month period. I was/am going to Mass General (1½ hours away from my Western Mass home). I had my surgery and luckily, melanoma was only found in the original lymph node. With melanoma there's a 50/50 chance for help through surgery. Unfortunately, there's no cure for melanoma. You just hope to remain NED (no evidence of disease) for years to come. I was asked to join a trial at Mass General which might improve my chances by 15%. What a decision.
I found solace in the website for melanoma research: MPIP.org which has a forum for people with melanoma of all stages. I kept reading stories about people who needed to travel for testing and/or for trials. They were asking if there was help with airfare and places to stay and I always felt really bad for them. I am very lucky to be in Massachusetts and can drive to/from Mass General.
When I decided to do the golf tournament, I knew I wanted to share some of the profits with a place that helped people out with places to stay. I read about many of them, but loved your story. So, it was really about YOUR story and hearing about others with the same plight you had, that made me choose Joe's House!!"
Kelly, again a huge thanks to you and your golf committee for your donation. As we say to all of our contributors, every single donation truly does make a difference. The best of luck with your fight against melanoma.
Testimonial
We always like to share what some of our patients and family members are saying about us. This from Sherri who was looking for lodging in Asheville, NC. Although Asheville does not appear on our site we were able to guide her to some hotels that offer Joe's House users a discount.
"Thank you so much for this information. Having gone through cancer with my Mother and sister, I know how stressful the travel, motels, etc... can be. If it hadn't been for places such as yours, I do not know what we would have done. Thank you for all you do and God Bless."
What's New
Every year Joe's House reaches out to every single place to stay on our site to verify all of the information posted. It's an enormous job and one that takes 4-5 months to complete. We are pleased to announce that we renewed over 1,800 lodging facilities.
- We are happy to have several new participating accommodations; Advantage Corporate Apartments and Robin's Nest Bed and Breakfast in Houston, The Element Hotel in New York City, TownePlace Suites in Ann Arbor, and the Mayflower Hotel in Seattle.
- Welcome back Extended Stay! Extended Stay America (ESA) an all suite extended stay brand has re-partnered with Joe's House. There are now over 170 ESA properties listed on Joe's House website.