Nutritious, Delicious Meals
For People Battling Life-Threatening Illnesses
Meals of Marin (MOM) provides life-enhancing, nutritious, delicious ready-to-eat meals to people with life-threatening illnesses throughout most of the San Francisco Bay Area. We serve people with illnesses such as breast cancer and other cancers, as well as people living with HIV/AIDS and other life-threatening illnesses. Often, our clients live alone and do not have a support system that they can turn to. Many of our clients are faced with the choice of either buying life-saving medicine or food. MOM provides the vital nutrition they need as they battle for their lives.
Following are a few examples of the clients we have served:
A young woman with three children, all under the age of twelve, was battling breast cancer. Her spouse had passed away just two months previous to her diagnosis. She was facing surgery, radiation therapy as well as chemotherapy, all while trying to care for her family. At first, she had a very hard time accepting help from MOM. But, sometimes we just can’t do it all alone – we need to reach out and allow others to help us. We were grateful to be able to do just that for this mother and her three beautiful children.
A wheelchair-bound client with full blown AIDS had to take an assortment of medications to keep the virus somewhat at bay. He needed to have food in his stomach to not feel devastatingly sick when swallowing so many pills three times a day. We supported him with excellent nutrition to help him have a fighting chance of surviving the illness that was threatening his life.
A single mother with a teenage daughter, in the middle of a busy fulfilled life, unexpectedly received a diagnosis of breast cancer. MOM was able to help her through all the treatments she had to endure in order to beat the cancer. We are so grateful to have been allowed to help her through this dark time in her life.
A young man suffering from cancer of the throat had to have radiation therapy to destroy the inoperable tumors. This treatment burned the inside of his mouth and throat. While he was unable to eat or drink, and was being fed though a tube, we supplied meals to his devoted caregiver. Later, as he was able to swallow again, we liquefied each and every meal so he could take in good nutrition without causing him more agony.
One of our first clients in the early 1990s was a veteran who had contracted AIDS. When we first met him, he was extremely thin and in full blown wasting syndrome. He was too sick and too impoverished to buy and prepare food. We started bringing large portions of appetizing meals every day. Although bedridden, when we visited with the food, he would sit up and eat every last morsel. His words touched us very deeply: “I know that I will not survive this, however, your visits and your food are the highlights of my day and help me tolerate this illness a bit better. Because of you, I know that I am not alone. Thank you.”
Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.
Francis of Assisi
