‘SHOULDN’T GO BANKRUPT BECAUSE YOU GOT SICK’
Joe Andruzzi Foundation hits $7M donation mark, giving back to local cancer patients
Boston native Amy Deveau was exhausted, dizzy and barely able to function when she drove herself to the emergency room in 2017 thinking she had pneumonia.
She didn’t leave the hospital for a month, and launched into aggressive, daily cancer treatment for a rare form of leukemia.
“The world kind of just went
dark. I didn’t hear the rest of what the doctor told me,” said Deveau of when she got the diagnosis.
“I so naively thought I was just going to get checked out and go home,” said Deveau, who was in her early thirties and had a 5-month-old daughter at the time.
Deveau would undergo treatment for eight months, meaning she couldn’t work and the family would need to survive on her husband’s income. “Panic starts to set in and you realize one paycheck only covers so much,” she said.
That’s when a hospital social worker directed Deveau to the Joe Andruzzi Foundation, a nonprofit organization that helps local families with the nonmedical cost of cancer such as phone bills, mortgage or car payments.
The Joe Andruzzi Foundation, created by the former New England Patriots three-time Super Bowl-winning offensive guard and his wife Jen Andruzzi, CEO and president of the organization, surpassed $7 million in donations last month.
Andruzzi had his own battle with cancer in 2007, when he was diagnosed with nonHodgkin’s Burkitt’s lymphoma, which ended his football career, but later served as motivation to launch the foundation.
“No one financially plans for cancer. When you’re in treatment and can’t work, those household bills keep coming and the stress that a family feels can be tremendous,” said Andruzzi.
Jen said, “It’s a health scare, but it’s so much greater than that. The cost of cancer, what it actually does to a family, is so much more.”
She said 42% of new cancer patients lose their entire life savings in two years because of treatment, adding up to an average of $92,000.
Halfway through treatment, Deveau submitted her car payment, car insurance and cellphone bill to the organization and almost immediately got checks in the mail with everything taken care of.
“They thought of everything, it was pretty incredible,” said Deveau. “It kind of just gave us the morale boost that we needed in the middle of this long haul.”
Deveau and her family are among the 12,000 JAF has helped. The organization has connections with 20 health care facilities in New England that identify patients in need, said Jen, who looks forward to reaching even more families this year.
“It’s really scary to think that there’s patients out there that don’t have the means to stay in their home and have to worry about keeping a roof over their children’s head,” said Jen.
Deveau was declared in complete remission in August 2018. “It still feels surreal,” she said. Her daughter is 2 years old now, and Deveau cherishes “every single moment” of family time.
Deveau stays involved with JAF by attending events and speaking at fundraisers.
“Cancer can be devastating and it doesn’t have to take such a financial toll on families, you shouldn’t have to go bankrupt because you got sick,” said Deveau.
Andruzzi said, “When I meet JAF patient recipients or their family members and get a hug during an extremely difficult time in their lives, it reinforces the importance of the work we’re doing each day.”