2021 Season to Share
Season to Share, the Post’s annual charity campaign, enters its 26th year. Since its founding in 1995, the nonprofit effort has raised more than $15.3 million for needy families and individuals in Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast.
All donations go to the Post’s nominees and their nominating agencies. Once the nominees’ needs are met, the agencies can help other needy families. Season to Share funds are not used by the agencies for administrative purposes. The reader-donated funds are managed and distributed to the agencies by the Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties, a respected philanthropic presence in the county for nearly 50 years.
Thanks to generous Palm Beach Post readers, families have been fed, pantries stocked, new homes acquired and medical needs fulfilled through the Season to Share drive. Last year alone, readers raised some $708,000.
Please contact Keely Gideon-Taylor if you have any questions – keely.gideon-taylor@localiq.com
Here are the 2021 Season to Share nominees:
Nominee: Shawania Wyatt: Illness, first COVID, now cancer has cost a mother her independence and her home
All Shawania Wyatt wants is her life the way it used to be, when she worked long hours, raised her two sons, took classes to move her career forward, and when she had her home and her health.
She can’t remember the last day she felt strong and healthy. She can remember the last day she worked, though.
“It was January,” she said softly, and pauses. “January 4.”
She remembers when she could still pay rent. She also remembers when she had to give up the West Palm Beach home that she and hers sons shared. That was February.
By then, the 39-year-old nurse, mother and student had been sick for more than eight months, first with COVID-19, and then with a rare cancer that she continues to undergo debilitating chemotherapy to fight.
A licensed practical nurse, she worked full time as a secretary at Delray Medical Center and part-time for a home nursing agency when she contracted COVID-19 in June 2020.
Her sons, a preteen and a teenager, got it but had no symptoms.
She was hospitalized for five days. When she came home from the hospital she still struggled to breathe. After several more trips to the hospital she went home with an oxygen tank.
Before, she had never known serious illness. Her strength and stamina supported her determination to give her sons an example and the resources they would need to have satisfying and successful lives.
“Always,” she said, her voice gathering strength as she thought about the life she had “working two jobs and going to school.”
Back then, she was going to school to become a registered nurse.
Because she had become infected through her job, she had workers compensation, she said, which helped cover some of her expenses.
By then, though, she was realizing something else was wrong. She had pain in her belly and her stomach was upset. During a doctor visit for her ongoing COVID symptoms, she asked for a scan.
When she learned she had cancer -- a rare sarcoma, she started crying.
READ SHAWANIA'S FULL STORY HERE
SHAWANIA WYATT'S WISH
Wyatt needs resources to provide a stable home for her family. She needs gas vouchers to travel to her many medical appointments. She would like to be able to provide for her sons over the holidays. Donations for rent and furniture will help the Pink Queen foundation to secure a place where Shawania and her sons can live and heal.
Nominating agency: The Pink Queen Foundation, Inc.
Nominee: Linda Morris - Alone in an aging home, a retiree with no legs hopes for a safer, more mobile life
Linda Morris grew up in the tiny white and yellow house on West Third Street, and at 71 she still lives there. But since losing both her legs, each year it feels more like a prison.
With no railings, the improvised wheelchair ramp into the front room is a treacherous decline, making getting to her front door perilous.
Narrow hallways, warped doors and uneven tile floors make moving through the home difficult. She’s grown accustomed to calling paramedics when a bad turn or sticky wheel sends her to the floor, or maroons her between the kitchen and living room.
All around her, meanwhile, the house falls into deeper disrepair. Rain seeps in through window frames. The rattle of passing freight trains cracks the walls. Mold and dust encroach under the flooring.
LINDA MORRIS'S WISH
In order for Linda Morris to move safely and easily around her home, the Coalition for Independent Living Options says her residence needs a host of upgrades and fixes, including new doors, plumbing and electrical wiring, along with furniture safer and easier for her to use, a new wheelchair ramp with a railing, a new toilet, and Uber gift cards to reduce her dependence on public transit.
Nominating agency: Coalition for Independent Living
Nominee: Samantha Johnson - Young mother, used to giving, now in need after lupus hurts career, wrecks finances
Samantha Johnson was used to being the one offering assistance.
"I like helping others," she said. "It just makes me feel good. I'm always the go-to person even with friends, lending a helping hand."
The daughter of a minister, she worked as an addiction counselor at a treatment center and volunteered for organizations that included the Riviera Beach Family Resource Center, the YWCA and the Martin Luther King Jr. Coordinating Committee Palm Beach County.
She has received more than a half dozen awards for her community service.
Johnson, then a 29-year old single mother of two, was working full tilt in January when she began to feel poorly.
She developed a rash over much of her body. Lymph nodes in her neck and under both arms became swollen. She had body aches and a pervasive, seemingly never-ending fatigue.
Walking without assistance became a struggle, as did warding off depression.
She said she asked her employer for accommodations, a change in hours, different responsibilities. Her employer told her she'd have to transfer to another facility 20 miles away.
Still struggling and certain she couldn't manage the longer commute, Johnson said she had no choice but to resign.
Medical tests initially did not identify the problem, but they did offer up some news. Johnson learned she was pregnant.
The joy of that news in June was short-lived; a month later, she was diagnosed with lupus, a long-term autoimmune illness characterized by fatigue as well as joint and skin pain, that can damage internal organs.
READ JOHNSON'S FULL STORY HERE
SAMANTHA JOHNSON'S WISH
Johnson needs things for her new baby, including diapers, a breast pump, a bassinet; infant boy clothing; baby blankets; a car seat; and a stroller. She would like items for her girls to help them through this difficult time, including clothing sized 16 and 16x; sneakers for girls size 8; laptops for school; and two full size mattresses for bunk beds. General financial help is greatly needed to help with Johnson's car payment, car insurance, food, housing, cell phone bill, energy bill, maternity clothes, furniture, and a laptop for Johnson and money to return to school.
Nominating agency: Martin Luther King Jr. Coordinating Committee.
Nominee: Reginald Ware - West Palm Beach veteran missing nearly all his teeth struggles recover confidence
After 14 years of experiencing homelessness and having teeth pulled due to toothaches and cavities, Reginald Ware was left with just five teeth, all on the bottom of his mouth.
Although he once used dentures, he couldn't afford to fix them when they broke four years ago.
The 56-year-old U.S. Army veteran said job interviewers have turned him down and people have stared in the grocery store because of his teeth.
"It's all the rejection that really hurts," Ware said. "You look like a monster."
REGINALD WARE'S WISH
Following 14 years of homelessness, Reginald Ware is in need of $2,600 worth of tooth extractions, $200 of dental work, and fitting for permanent dentures, which cost $5,000. The Army veteran hopes receiving new dentures will help him get a job in cross-country trucking.
Nominating agency: 211 Helpline Palm Beach/ Treasure Coast
Nominee: Phillip Boswell - A disfiguring skin cancer has left him homeless, alone and in constant pain
An insidious skin cancer tortures Philip Boswell, devouring his face cell by cell.
The deeply rooted and spreading squamous cell carcinoma, first diagnosed in 2008, has led the 59-year-old into a spiral not of his own making. It’s a sickness with poisonous, cutting treatments that sidelined his ability to work, left him homeless, and made it so he can only open his mouth wide enough to eat the thinnest of foods - pizza with no toppings, sandwiches squished flat.
Maryland born, Boswell grew up in Palm Beach County, and attended John I. Leonard High School for about a year before dropping out so he could work to help support his family, he said.
Although he has five siblings, he has no communication with them. His mother, who he cared for in her later years, died in 1999.
Boswell was nominated for Season to Share by the Cancer Alliance of Help and Hope, in part, because he is “basically alone.”
“I have no friends,” Boswell said. “As soon as I got sick, friends disappeared.”
READ BOSWELL'S FULL STORY HERE
PHILLIP BOSWELL'S WISH
Squamous cell carcinoma has left 59-year-old Philip Boswell in constant pain, disfigured, homeless and alone. Radiation, surgeries and chemotherapy have ravaged his body and so damaged his eyesight that he lost his trucking job and is now living in his car. Boswell would like to pay off his car and find a furnished place to live where he can recover from his Friday chemotherapy sessions, cook his own food, shower and sleep in a bed. He also needs help paying for gas to get to his medical appointments. The Cancer Alliance estimates $30,000 would help with Boswell's needs.
Nominating agency: Cancer Alliance of Help & Hope
Nominee: Catherine Rosendary - Riviera Beach woman, 92, needs exterminator, cabinets, plumbing. A positive attitude? She's got that.
Ninety-two-year-old Catherine Rosendary finally found her place in the sun, when in 1946 she moved from her birthplace in Savannah, Georgia, to the toasty home in Riviera Beach where she still lives.
“I like the weather — that’s the one thing right off the bat,” she says of what drew her to South Florida.
The problem is, Rosendary’s place in the sun is now infested.
Cockroaches sneak into her refrigerator and mice and rats have taken up residence alongside her. And although the house is mostly concrete, termites have eaten through the wooden frame, along with the kitchen and bathroom cabinets that had to be removed for safety reasons.
Sticky traps designed to catch rats might have helped, she said, except she ended up snagging one frightening intruder she was not expecting.
“I woke up one morning and there was a snake on the thing!” she said.
With no one around to help, Rosendary was left to take the snake outdoors by herself. It still makes her shiver.
“I almost died, and now I think about it all the time,” she said.
All eight of Rosendary’s siblings are deceased, and she has no children of her own, she said. She gives herself two insulin shots a day to control her diabetes.
A florist by trade, Rosendary lost her job when her former employer and closest friend developed cancer and passed away quickly, she said.
READ ROSENDARY'S FULL STORY HERE
CATHERINE ROSENDARY'S WISH
Rosendary wants to stay safely in the home where she has spent most of her life. To do that she will need plumbing repairs amounting to about $5,000 and another $5,000 in repairs to her home's electrical system. Her home will need professional extermination services amounting to about $4,900. Appliances, including a refrigerator, stove, dishwasher and microwave oven that would enable her to store and prepare food safely would cost $1,200, and cabinets will cost about $11,000 to replace.
Nominating agency: Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County
Nominee: Cristina Ramirez - Mother of 5 struggles to keep family afloat after husband is shot to death outside their home
It was still dark that morning in May 2018 when Cristina Ramirez’s husband told her he was craving stewed vegetables. It was a Friday, the end of a long week of work and tending to the needs of their five children, and there wasn’t much but cabbage left in the fridge.
“He loved cabbage. He asked me to chop it in little bits and cook it for him,” Cristina recalled in Spanish on a recent day, her hands chopping the air, her eyes misty at the memory. “That’s what I was doing when I heard the gunshot.”
The gunshot that echoed through her kitchen struck and killed Antonio Sebastian Juan, her 41-year-old husband, just steps from their apartment door on 37th Street at Broadway Avenue in West Palm Beach. It was just before 5 a.m. His killer has not been caught.
More: For West Palm family, daily needs overshadow fear of unknown in patriarch’s killing
Cristina didn’t know what had happened at first, because she was too terrified to think. She called out to her eldest daughter, Reyna, to dial 911 while her brother-in-law rushed to Antonio’s side.
The Guatemalan-born mother ran out behind him, but realized it was too late. Antonio was gone. She wept for two weeks, stunned each time the younger children asked when their father would be home.
READ RAMIREZ'S FULL STORY HERE
CRISTINA'S WISH
After her husband was shot and killed just outside their home, Cristina Ramirez scrambled to support their five children, the youngest of them ages 8, 9 and 12. It has been three years, but the hardships continue. The Guatemalan-born mother, who prioritizes her U.S.-born children’s education, works two jobs to provide for her family and continues to live in the cramped, deteriorating apartment where an immigrant community sustains her as she daily passes the spot where her husband was fatally shot. Her family’s living conditions would improve greatly if she and the children had updated beds and furniture, including a dresser and a larger dining table, and a new stove. She and the children, especially her 15-year-old daughter and the sons ages 8 to 12, could use new shoes and clothes.
Nominating agency: Esperanza Community Center, West Palm Beach
Nominee: Emilia Turner - Genetic flaw threatens 3-year-old's eyesight and future
Our hostess Emilia Turner presides over a tiny table full of Play-Doh ice cream cones and cookies, a shaggy sentry of a dog at her side and some ridiculously pastel shaded ponies playing on TV.
As the ponies prepare for a pitched battle with unicorns, Emilia singing along, her body is host to a much quieter, but more menacing assault. It is contending with a genetic, tumor-producing disorder that modern medicine can attempt to hold at bay, but likely will never wholly defeat.
The 3-year-old has a tumor that spans both optic nerves and reaches into her brain, threatening her eyesight and wreaking havoc on her growth hormones.
With chemo, the tumor is beginning to recede. But Emilia's parents are bracing for a lifetime of medical vigilance against a variety of threats that new tumors could pose.
When Emilia arrived in 2018, her parents Sarah and Robbie Turner breathed a sigh of relief after a difficult pregnancy. Their family was complete.
"She was in the world and perfect," Sarah said.
But when their girl was just 4 months old, a pediatrician suggested Emilia undergo genetic testing that eventually revealed a defect in a gene tasked with producing tumor suppressing proteins. The disorder is called neurofibromatosis Type 1 (NF1).
THE TURNER FAMILY'S WISH
The family needs help paying medical bills because their insurance doesn’t cover everything. They also need assistance with rent, car maintenance, gas, and costs of parking in Miami. They would also love to do a mini-makeover of Emilia’s room to make it brighter and more appealing to help her transition from their room to hers. Emilia's parents have tapped into electronic educational games both to distract and engage her during treatment, but their iPad is old and is in need of replacement. The family could also use a sturdier wagon to wheel Emilia and her belongings, including stuffed bunnies, snacks, toiletries and clothes, on her medical rounds. (Something that can be pushed and pulled would be ideal.)
Nominating agency: Pediatric Oncology Support Team
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Charity: Season to Share holiday drive helps Palm Beach County families
