Ford dealers cover parking for breast cancer patients
After surgery for breast cancer in 2003, Kathy Wagler faced 35 radiation treatments that required her to show up at UPMC Mercy Hospital five afternoons a week for seven straight weeks.
Her husband, Jim, picked her up each day at Crivelli Ford in Hopewell, Beaver County, where she is president, drove her to Mercy in Pittsburgh’s Uptown neighborhood for the appointmentsand then took her back towork.
She never gave a thought to paying for gas and parking during those 50-mile round trips because her husband quietly handled the money.
But for those facing such treatments alone or with limited financial means, those costs can add up quickly and become an additional burden to getting well.
That’s why Ms. Wagler proposed a group of Ford automotive dealers recognize Breast Cancer Awareness Month by picking up parking expenses for patients last week at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center, Shadyside.
Neighborhood Ford Store, an advertising organization for 80 Ford dealers in Western Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio and parts of West Virginia and Maryland, provided $10,000 to cover parking fees for breast cancer patients and other individuals seeking treatment at the cancer center.
Managing treatments “is very tiring,” said Ms. Wagler, who serves as chairwoman of Neighborhood Ford Store.
“You have to have the right support to get you through.”
About 3,000 patients receive treatments each week at Hillman Cancer Center and pay $5 per visit to park, said UPMC spokeswoman Cyndy Patton.
Donations like free parking help relieve patients’ stress and “certainly ease some of the anxieties of coming in for treatment,” said Stephanie Dutton, vice president and chief operating officer of UPMC Hillman.
Ford Motor Co. has a history of supporting causes for breast cancer patients, including its Warriors in Pink initiatives that provide grants to help with transportation and car payments.
The local Neighborhood
Ford Store supports the annual Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure fundraiser and creates “warrior quilts” that are distributed each October to breast cancer treatment centers in hospitals and clinics.
Ms. Wagler’s board approved the October parking donation in early March before the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
Since then, she said, the need has become even greater because many fighting
breast cancer are also experiencing job loss or other stresses related to the pandemic.
The Pink Fund, a Michigan charity that helps with living expenses for individuals being treated for breast cancer, said the “financial toxicity” or monetary side effects associated with the disease can result in reduced well-being, subpar care and greater risk of death.
A report from the Dana
Farber Cancer Institute found 27% of those being treated experienced at least one financial hardship such as increased debt or bankruptcy, while 37% make career or work modifications whenthey are diagnosed.
Minorities and people without health insurance face even greater challenges, the report said.
Ms. Wagler, 68, experienced financial struggles long before her bout with cancer.
When she was 8 years old, her father died, leaving her mother with four young children to support.
She was a junior at StoRox High School when a school official announced Crivelli Chevrolet in McKees Rocks needed a student to work evenings and Saturdays.
Ms. Wagler got the office job “because I had the best handwriting” of all the applicants, she said.
Each week, she split her $14.24 paycheck by giving $5 to her mother, putting $5 in a passbook savings account, and keeping $4 to buy herself clothes.
After graduating from high school, she joined the company full time and within a decade was an office manager helping to open other Crivelli dealerships.
She attended GM’s dealer training program in the early 1990s but told the company she wasn’t interested in running a dealership outside the Pittsburgh region.
She then teamed with Nick Crivelli, whose family operated several Chevrolet dealerships in the region, to purchase a Ford store in Hopewell in 1992; she bought out his share in 2006.
Ms. Wagler’s cancer diagnosis came after she noticed a lump during a breast self-examination.
After her surgery, during which doctors removed 15 lymph nodes, she underwent four intense chemotherapy sessions prior to starting radiation.
She was adamant about returning to work after each treatment — sometimes with a drainage tube — “because I didn’t want to lie on the couch feeling sorry for myself.”
“I’m a fighter. I’ve been in the car business for 52 years.”