Denise Needs the Human Touch; Donate to Her Gofundme!

Follow the link to go to Denise Beckel’s GoFundMe page.  

Denise has struggled with life threatening illness since 1995. If the disease doesn’t kill her, the financial impact will kill her and her family. Read about Denise Beckel, Please reach into your pocket. Vote with your feet by donating to the Beckels.

 

When you peruse the listings on GoFundMe, you must be aware of scam postings and the genuine ones. It’s easy to by-pass the campaigns that ask for others to pay for their luxuries, like getting married in Hawaii. No way that person deserves a dollar much less the $50,000 asked for in the campaign. It is a great use of some discretionary money when you find the genuine “need” campaign. Whether it be for an injured dog rescued from a pit-bull fighting ring or to help defray the costs of a funeral and burial. The campaigns that really need help are the ones where catastrophic events happened in a person’s life or to help with medical bills of the under insured.

A Touching Campaign

I was perusing the campaigns as I have a couple of spare dollars and I like the feeling of helping someone when they need help. I came across a person with a medical condition for the last decade. I did some background on the campaign since I am a journalist and was touched by the story.

Denise Beckel

Denise Beckel is a 43 year old mother of a girl and a boy; Taylor 16, and Ryan 14. Married to Eric, a Sergeant in the NYPD assigned to the Narcotics unit in the Bronx for almost 20 years. Denise was a nurse before she was unable to continue working due to her health issue. Her health issues started in 1995 with that feeling that something was just not right. Respecting her privacy, I will cut to the chase, doctors realized she had a failing liver and without a transplant she would die. Denise waited seven long arduous years for a healthy donor Liver. During that time, she “lived” in doctor’s waiting and treatment rooms and she raised her family from young children to teenagers. Denise took a handful of pills, all sizes and shapes, everyday to try and prolong the inevitable visit from the grim reaper when her liver one day would decide not to function properly anymore.

Post Op Liver recipient

Denise got her liver seven years after waiting on the donor list. Her strength and her support system of love from her family, her aunts and uncles, and nieces and nephews gave her the strength to preserve. The strength to not give up and to raise her children. Talking to her extended family, they had little knowledge that anything was wrong, because Denise was all about, how everyone else was doing and deflected any talk about her burden. The operation went well. Her body didn’t reject the organ and everything looked like they were over the hump. Unfortunately she developed a very common disease associated with liver transplants, its called Cytomegalovirus(CMV).

Cytomegalovirus

I’m not a doctor and really can’t explain the disease so I enclosed a link, just click the name. What I did learn was that 48% of the transplant patients that contracted CMV would die in the first 5 years. That’s a coin toss folks. Put 2 people in a room and 1 won’t be there in a year. This is serious. This is life and death. This is not being around to see your son and daughter graduate college, get married, meet your grandchildren. This is tragic. All CMV patients are put on a daily cocktail of pills to take. Without them the prognosis is inevitable death. This is non-negotiable and here is the problem, the cost.  The main one is Valcyte, the most expensive drug at $5500 for a one month supply. Without the medications, the prognosis is inevitable, Death. These pill cocktails are non-negotiable and here is the problem, the cost.

Cost of the drugs to treat Cytomegalovirus

The cost to take the medication is $2500 for a 14 day supply. That’s a cost of $178.00 per day. Or a cost of $5535.00 per month. Remember there are 4.3 weeks in a month so that’s 3 extra days of $178.00. Eric, her husband being a NYPD police Sergeant has Blue Cross/Blue Shield GHI as their health care provider and they only cover half the cost of the drugs. So, every month, they have to find $2750 net dollars to pay for the prescriptions. According to the NYPD website a NYPD sergeant tops out at 98k per year gross and they pay into their own pensions. After that deduction and the government getting their share of federal tax, state tax, city tax, and FICO, let’s say there is 60% left, that leaves $44,000 a year. Divide that by 12 months is $3660. net. Now they pay the prescription and that is $3600-$2750 leaves $916.00 to pay the mortgage, food, utilities etc. Now that is depressing and the numbers don’t work. Numbers don’t lie. They will eventually go bankrupt and won’t be able to live. If this isn’t a clear case of the community needing to come together and help, really, what is?

GoFundMe for Denise Beckel

Follow the link to go to Denise Beckel’s GoFundMe page. Her Aunt and former Emergency room nurse at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx started the GoFundMe page for Denise. You can read their story there. Denise’s Mom, Theresa, Step-dad Ronnie, hate that term step-dad, he is more of a father than the real guy, so I will just call him Dad out of respect, and her brother Rich continue to support their beloved Denise. Rich is a detective in the NYPD Bomb Squad. Rich is a helluva guy and both he and Eric were at the WTC and helped at ground zero. Rich and his wife, Police Officer Diana Henderson, saw the family being swallowed by the medical bills, they tapped into their pension funds and took out money to prevent the Beckel’s from going under financially. This can’t go on indefinitely, there is only so much money, only so much “blood can you squeeze from a stone.” This is where we come in, the community.

When in need of help, we call

When you need help, you call 911. Two people in blue uniforms arrive and no matter what time of day, the weather, pr if it is a holiday, they will be at your door within minutes of being notified a member of the community needs help. They will run into a dark alley outnumbered 100 to 1 ready to give up their life to protect someone in their community. They will die to protect a stranger. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13.

It’s our turn to answer the call to help.

It is our turn. The GoFundMe posting is the Beckel family calling 911. Will we answer the call? We better because this is the way we say thank you. This is what we should do. This is the right thing to do. Let’s make that commitment and take the stand that Denise doesn’t belong just to the Beckel family but is a valuable member of mankind., of our family They say a village is needed to raise a child; a community is needed to heal it’s sick. If we all decide to give some money, together we can make their life a happy place without financial disaster waiting them. Do it because that could be your daughter, your wife, your mother in that bed staring death in the face. Just Do It. If Everyone gave as little as $20, it will help to defray their cost. What do you say. 20 bucks a reader and let’s make Denise a honorary member of our family. Makes sure you put Yahoo in the donate note section and I will personally list your name in a future article to thank you personally. Thanks and God Bless Denise and he family. All proceeds from this article will be remitted to the Beckels. Please share it so more people know about this worthy endeavor. Denise Beckel GoFundMe Page.

***For the residents of New York city. There is a 10-13 fundraiser sponsored by the NYC Detectives Endowment Association on June 26^th at 7PM at St. Vartan Cathedral, 630 Second Avenue, Between East 34th & 35th Streets in Manhattan. The cost is $20 per person to benefit Denise. Please RSVP at 10-13 FOR DENISE BECKEL, WIFE OF SGT. ERIC BECKEL

GoFundMe is the Most Popular, Easiest to Use Crowdfunding Site

Need Help with Medical Bills or an Emergency?  GoFundMe has raised $290 million dollars to date. GoFundMe enables people to ask friends, family and strangers for financial assistance throughout various times of their lives when they need help with medical bills, burial assistance, or college tuition.

 

GoFundMe is a great website. It is a crowdfunding fundraising site. GoFundMe was started in 2010 and over $290 Million dollars has been raised to date. GoFundMe is filled with financial requests from people who want help with tuition bills, to third party requests to help cover the expenses of a medical crisis or to bury a loved one. Some of the stories will make you cry and other requests will make you want to reach through the computer screen and strangle the person wanting $50k to have a lavish wedding in Hawaii. Looking past the obvious “idiots of the internet,” there are an amazing amount of genuine requests from regular people in dire need.

 

How I found about GO Fund Me?

I think most people encounter the site for the first time because they saw it on their facebook page as a request for financial need from one of their social network friends. This is the most common way for people to get out the message. Some people find it uncomfortable asking for financial assistance and this takes some of the sting out of it. It also allows people that don’t want to or don’t have that flexibility in their budget to not participate and still save “face.”

 

How it works?

It’s a simple process. People sign up for a free account. They build a page with an easy to navigate dashboard that tells the story of what the financial request is all about. Once the page is built, they link it to their social media sites like Facebook or Google+. They can then Tweet the sites link and in general promote it with any tool at their disposal. That’s it. Now the money comes in and it will be available as it rolls in, not waiting for a goal amount to be reached. When you withdraw the money it can be directly transferred to a bank account or a check request can be submitted. There is a 5-7 day processing period for either withdrawal.

 

What does it cost?

For the people donating, it costs nothing. For the hosts of the event, Go Fund Me does take 5% of each donation to run the overhead cost of maintaining servers and hiring employees. They also retain 3% when making a withdrawal, so 8% will come off the top. I do recommend if someone wants to make a large donation. Different arrangements should be made to avoid that 8% fee. The site is really about collecting the smaller amounts from many people. You will be surprised at how quick some $20 bills add up.

 

 

How long are the campaigns?

You set the duration of a campaign. You will continue to have a “live” page till you turn it off. Most people have a financial goal in mind and easily readable stats on how well, the campaign is doing in comparison to the goal. Most people never take down the page in testament to the generous donors. The actual goal will never come into play in a real world scenario. No matter the goal, every penny collected will go to the recipient of the campaign.

 

Does it have to be a public campaign?

It doesn’t have to be a public campaign and you don’t have to promote it on any social media site. You can build the page and hand out the link independently to whom you like. Keep in mind, Go Fund Me success happens when lots of people know about it. People you know and strangers can all be potential donors. So it is in your campaign’s interest to get the word out and keep the site public. There is nothing wrong to ask for a hand up when you need one legitimately.

 

Type of campaigns

There are many categories on the site and you have a wide range of what is socially acceptable and even what isn’t that is on the site. Some examples of some categories are:

• Accidents and Emergencies
• Babies, kids, and families
• Business and Entrepreneurs
• Celebrations and special events
• Community and Neighbors
• Medical, Illness and healing
• Funerals, Memorials and Tributes

Beware of the Net

Everyone should beware of course of con men. This isn’t Disney and there are a lot of predators with no morals in the world. So, do your due diligence before you donate. See, if there are links maybe showing an article on what the campaign is about. If the campaign is requesting money because a woman had a birth of 12 kids and she needs the assistance then I am sure there is some news about her. Don’t be gullible. Remember to check authenticity. There is nothing wrong with being guarded but don’t let that prevent you from being generous either.

 

Feels good giving someone a hand up

We need to remember our humanity. We need to be thankful for what we have and also remember some people have a real tough road in life. They may at times need the community to help them overcome a burden. Not everyone is financially solvent to handle every emergency that life throws at them. It is said, it takes a village to raise a child and it takes a community to support it’s needy. Give what you can and the smallest contribution is a more than welcomed and appreciated and as you hit the donate button, say a quick prayer that you or a love one won’t be building a GoFundMe page in the future because of some unexpected life catastrophe.