Season to Share 2023: Charity features families battling consequences of major illness

A mother with a terminal illness struggles to care for her children. A woman who survived a double lung transplant battles cystic fibrosis. A poor cancer patient seeks help for her two autistic children.

If a minor hardship can cause a ripple in our lives, imagine the tidal wave a major illness can set off.

The stories that make up The Post’s Season to Share project are linked by such tidal waves. As the holiday charity drive enters its 28th year, this season features eight nominees from Palm Beach County.

You’ll meet Tiffany Pinkney, a 31-year-old Lake Worth Beach mother stricken with Huntington’s disease, a deadly condition that causes memory loss, mood swings and the loss of physical control.

As her symptoms worsen, she fears for the future of her two children, ages 2 and 5, she cares for. Even with the help of her children’s father, her caregiver, her family is struggling to stay afloat.

Also in Lake Worth Beach, you’ll meet 4-year-old Amy Galeano, diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia when she was 20 months old. Her family is in survival mode as she continues to fight severe related conditions and receive chemotherapy treatments.

Some miles away, West Palm Beach resident Maria Sanchez, a double lung transplant survivor, battles cystic fibrosis. Her skyrocketing medical expenses have become overwhelming.

And in Riviera Beach, you’ll meet Caedyn Jynella, a brave 5-year-old boy battling the effects of a large, inoperable tumor in his brain for nearly four years now. He dreams of being a first responder.

He is one of the courageous kids featured in this year’s Season to Share nominee profiles. They join featured families and individuals who are among the Palm Beach County area’s most needy.

In last year’s holiday drive, donations by generous readers totaled $618,515. Those donations not only helped better the lives of the featured nominees but of other struggling individuals and families served by their nominating agencies.

How Season to Share works

All Season to Share donations, which are made via the Community Foundation website, go to helping nominees via their nominating agencies. Once the nominees’ needs are met, the charitable agencies can use the funds to assist other needy families within their agencies. Season to Share funds are not to be used by the agencies for administrative purposes.

The reader-donated funds are managed and distributed to the agencies by the Community Foundation of Palm Beach and Martin counties, a respected philanthropic presence for more than 50 years.

Please contact Keely Gideon-Taylor if you have any questions – keely.gideon-taylor@localiq.com

Here are the 2023 Season to Share nominees:

Nominee: Tiffany Pinkney - Mother's fatal and disabling disease challenges family

Huntington’s disease brings chaos as well as tragedy into the lives it takes over, and Tiffany Pinkney had lived through a great deal of both long before she was diagnosed with the illness.

She and her siblings often went hungry while her mother, temperamental and erratic, drank and spun out of control in a series of relationships with men who were abusive.

Her brother, who as a boy broke into schools to steal food for the family, was shot to death during a robbery as a young man. One of her older sisters was incarcerated, leaving a son behind who needed care. Pinkney, the youngest, shouldered responsibilities that led her siblings to nickname her “Big Sister.”

When she was 17, she tried to take her own life.

By then, she realizes as she searches her memory, she knew that her mother had a hereditary condition that made her act the way she did, and that was going to kill her, and that was called Huntington's disease.

“A psychiatrist asked me, ‘What’s your biggest fear’?” she recalls. “I said, ‘Having Huntington’s.’”

➤ READ TIFFANY PINKNEY'S FULL STORY HERE.

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Tiffany Pinkney's Wish:

As a child, Tiffany Pinkney watched her family fall into chaos as her mother was overwhelmed by the ravages of Huntington's disease. Now, the 32-year-old mother of two is wrestling with the same inherited and eventually fatal disease. She is no longer able to work, even as her family struggles to meet her growing needs, and their living expenses. The family needs help covering utility bills, rent and food, clothes and shoes for the children for the next year. They also need money to maintain their car. Because of her progressive physical limitations, Pinkney could use a new couch and lift bars and safety equipment to help her move as independently as possible. Pinkney knows that she soon will need a hospital bed at a cost of at least $2,000, but she wants to put that off as long as possible. And, Lacy says, “We’d like the children to have a nice Christmas.”

Nominated by: Adopt-A-Family of the Palm Beaches Inc.

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Nominee: Caedyn Jynella - Courageous boy fights aggressive brain cancer as family struggles

Caedyn Jynella is a spunky, curious 5-year-old boy who loves to play with his brothers and his dog Zeus, sometimes in superhero costumes, and dreams of becoming a police officer when he grows up.

That he can grow up happy and healthy is his mother’s greatest wish.

The boy is stricken with an aggressive form of brain cancer. A large tumor presses against his optic nerve, causing blindness in his left eye. The tumor also causes his legs to drag sometimes and sets off severe headaches and fatigue, according to the Cancer Alliance of Help & Hope, the nonprofit agency that nominated the boy and his family for the Season to Share drive.

➤ READ CAEDYN JYNELLA'S FULL STORY HERE.

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Caedyn Jynella's Wish

Caedyn Jynella, a 5-year-old Riviera Beach boy fighting an aggressive, inoperable brain tumor, has been enduring cancer treatments for close to four years. Burdened with medical and related expenses, his mother, a single woman raising three boys, has sought the community’s help via an online fundraising site and other efforts. The family needs money for transportation, utilities, food and to pay the mortgage. They would benefit from a variety of gift cards. Caedyn loves superheroes and would enjoy any related toys and costumes.    

Nominating agency: Cancer Alliance of Help & Hope, Palm Beach

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Nominee: Maria Sanchez - After a double-lung transplant, Maria Sanchez needs life-saving medications

For years, Maria Sanchez’s lungs were in such rough shape just laughing would leave her so desperately short of breath she ran the risk of going unconscious. Enjoying a simple popsicle presented similar challenges. The West Palm Beach resident was suffering the debilitating effects of cystic fibrosis.

In 2019, the disease appeared to have won, sending her into respiratory failure. But Sanchez survived, receiving a double-lung transplant.

➤ READ MARIA SANCHEZ'S FULL STORY HERE

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Maria Sanchez’s Wish

Born with cystic fibrosis, Maria Sanchez has spent much of her life at odds with her own lungs. Then, four years ago, they finally gave out. She went into respiratory failure, but her life was saved by a double lung transplant. Her recovery has been difficult and the costs steep. She and her husband are struggling to pay the $4,381.15 she owes her pharmacy to cover the first year-and-a-half of post-transplant medications. Maria also suffers from diabetes, gout and digestive issues that have required multiple surgeries, and now also require she purchase a motorized wheelchair. Sanchez health prevents her from working and they are supported only through her husband’s single income as a minister. They need help paying off their medical debt and and getting a leg up on growing medical bills.

Nominated by: Piper’s Angels

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Nominee: Sakura Hernandez - Lake Worth family struggles to pay for care that fuels teen's progress

Twin sisters Sakura and Akira Hernandez were born at 28 weeks, three months prematurely. They each weighed 1 pound, 11 ounces when nurses rushed them to the NICU.

“We could fit in Dad’s hands,” says Sakura, who is now 13 and loves dinosaurs.  “Both of us together,” chimes in Akira, who has a passion for writing.

They were in the neonatal intensive care unit for two months before Akira came home. Sakura had an open-heart surgery at three weeks old and joined the family two months later.

➤ READ SAKURA HERNANDEZ' S FULL STORY HERE.

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Sakura Hernandez's Wish

Thirteen-year-old Sakura Hernandez arrived in the world prematurely, had open heart surgery before she was a month old and has had to also contend with cerebral palsy that causes muscle stiffness and affects her motor skills. Up to six visits weekly to doctors and physical therapists and a new motorized wheelchair have given Sakura more freedom, and delivered skills physicians never expected her to master, including swimming and riding an adaptive bike. But family's finances are strained. They needs a newer minivan to help take 13-year-old Sakura to medical and therapy sessions at doctors' offices as far away as Miami. Her motorized wheelchair barely fits into the 2011 Honda Odyssey the family relies upon daily. The family would also welcome a portable wheelchair lift to load and unload the 70-pound wheelchair. The continuing costs of Sakura's care has made it difficult for the family to save for these items.

Nominated by: Bella's Angels

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Nominee: Khadean Metcalf - Deaths rocked family, then came challenges of twins with autism

The birthday party was supposed to bring a little joy back into their lives after all that grieving. Instead, they got that fateful call.

“It was a rough time trying to balance what to do,” said Khadean, now 39. “I prayed and asked God, ‘How are we going to do this?’ ”

She sobbed the whole way to the party.

“I was just rocked. I knew the twins were delayed, but getting an actual diagnosis was a lot,” Khadean said. “When I first heard it, I couldn’t fully grasp what it meant for us.”

But the pronouncement ended up helping both parents and children, Khadean said. With diagnoses in hand, the couple was able to enroll the twins in therapy classes and the Palm Beach School for Autism in Lake Worth Beach the following year.

The twins require extra-effort parenting.

➤ READ KHADEAN METCALF'S FULL STORY HERE.

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Khadean Metcalf's Wish

Their twins were three years old when Khadean Metcalf and her husband Jeffrey were able to put a name to what was fueling their children's sleepless nights, dangerous wanderlust and the source of developmental delays: austism spectrum disorder. The Metcalfs would like to give twins Serene and Jeffrey Jr. Cubby Beds, built specifically to soothe children with special needs. The beds come equipped with circadian light features, relaxing sounds, padded walls and a monitoring camera. They would also fence in the backyard, to curb the danger should young Jeffrey wander and allow the twins a safe space to play outdoors. Transporting the twins is challenging. The family's aging SUV requires expensive maintenance and is causing back problems for Khadean must lift the children into the vehicle on her own at times. A minivan would allow the twins to climb in unassisted. The twins don't fit in traditional strollers, so the parents use a large wagon, but specialty strollers would be a welcome relief that would allow them to manage outings more safely. They could also use a supply of medical diapers, a cost not covered through insurance.

Nominated by: Grandma's Place of Royal Palm Beach

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Nominee: Amy Galeano - As 4-year-old battles cancer, family needs help supporting themselves

As an infant Amy Galeano was always getting sick, and she never stayed healthy for long. Yet every trip to the doctor ended the same way.

“She had constant fever,” recalled her mother, Karina Castaneda Medina, “and the doctor would say it’s just an infection.”

The frustrated mother eventually decided she’d had enough. Returning home from a housekeeping job one day, she picked up her sick daughter and drove her to a hospital.

There, a concerned doctor ordered up tests. Soon Amy’s family learned she wasn’t just suffering routine infections. She had acute lymphocytic leukemia, a potentially fatal cancer that affects the blood and bone marrow.

➤ READ AMY GALEANO'S FULL STORY HERE.

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Amy Galeano's Wish

As Amy works to rid her body of cancer, her parents need help providing a comfortable, caring home environment for her and Alondra. Amy's family needs donations to help cover the costs of maintaining their family on a reduced income while Amy's mother dedicates herself to overseeing her care and treatment. That includes money to help pay for rent, car insurance, electric bills and other fixed costs. To pass the days in their home, Amy would benefit from a new play kitchen, with toy dishes, pots pans and food. Castaneda Medina, Amy and Alondra could also use new clothes and shoes, as well as a pair of roller shoes for Alondra.

Nominated by: Kids Cancer Foundation

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Nominee: Maria Rosales - Family of 5's dreams are complicated by mom's lymphoma, 2 sons with autism

When Maria Rosales closes her eyes, she dreams of a sun-drenched home surrounded by flowers.

It has kitchen appliances that function and a backyard for her family's four dogs. It has soft carpeting and separate bedrooms for her three sons. It provides a respite from the constant stress of her untreated cancer, overdue bills and medical appointments for her two sons who have autism.

When she opens her eyes, the house is gone.

Her three broad-shouldered sons nudge past each other in their shared bedroom, where teenagers Jared and Chris sleep on twin-size bunk beds inches from a queen bed belonging to their older brother, Carlos. Maria's stove malfunctions so some burners never get hot, and the flooring is stripped down to concrete — the bedbug bites got so severe that the family had to rip up the infested carpet after their landlord refused to replace it.

➤ READ MARIA ROSALES' FULL STORY HERE.

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Maria Rosales' Wish

Maria Rosales and her husband already had their plates full, with three teen sons, two of whom have autism. Then Rosales was diagnosed with cancer. While her sons' medical expenses are covered by Medicaid, Maria Rosales needs money to see an oncologist for treatment for her lymphoma. She and her family are living in a cramped rental space, with appliances that don't work and carpet that's been removed due to bedbugs. She would welcome the resources to move to a larger home and to purchase a reliable vehicle to drive Chris and Jared to medical appointments.

Nominated by: Caridad Center

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Nominee: Tobias DeLeon - A 3-year-old faces blood cancer and a family faces financial strain

They met at a dance in West Palm Beach in 1994.

Charity, the Florida teen, born and raised in the Sunshine State, was leaving. Felix, the immigrant from the Dominican Republic, was just arriving.

Somehow, Charity was convinced to stay.

"We danced and got to know each other," Charity said.

The pair married in 1999, and happily ever after came fast. Three children, then a fourth. They had a five-bedroom house in Greenacres. Felix was a maintenance man, and Charity started a vegan bakery out of their garage.

But the preacher doesn't just say happily ever after. There's that 'in sickness and in health' part, too. And Charity and Felix DeLeon have dealt with enough sickness to last five lifetimes.

➤ READ TOBIAS DELEON'S FULL STORY HERE.

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Tobias DeLeon's Wish

Just a toddler, Tobias DeLeon is on a years-long chemotherapy regimen to battle a blood cancer. Sadly, his family was not unfamiliar with childhood health crisis — Tobias' older sister was born with an array of medical maladeis that impair her lungs and limit her speech and intellectual abilities. Parents Charity and Felix DeLeon find themselves now fighting an endless series of battles — against the illnesses sickening two of their children, against despair and against the crushing financial ramifications that come with those diagnoses. The family moved to a more affordable home, but Felix's commute and the hours-long drives to the oncologist and hospital in West Palm Beach is taking its toll on their vehicles that are each at least a decade old. They need a reliable replacement. The family needs help to cover their mortgage, car insurance and gas. The family must also eat very "clean" foods due to the children's medical needs. They welcome any help paying for that significant expense as well.

Nominated by: Pediatric Oncology Support Team

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This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Season to Share 2023: Charity helps Palm Beach County families