A Message From Our Founder
We are Bold – a name we gave to our boat while on Travel Respite at Woodloch, during the boat build with the FPS Families, yet a name that truly captures the spirit of our amazing FPS Respite Recipients and our amazing supporters who make Respite Experiences happen for our families!
Thank you for being bold in supporting our vision of FPS Respite for families. FPS Families are bold in ensuring that cancer does not define them. And our FPS Supporters are bold in generosity of time, talent and treasure as they give so much of themselves to help others. Let us stand together in bold conviction about the impact of respite transforming lives forever!
You will see Bold Faces, Bold Smiles and Bold Successes outlined in this Annual Report with one Bold Focus – our Amazing Respite Recipients who face cancer day in and day out! Together, We are Bold in saying Love is greater than Cancer. I invite you to reach out with any questions or ideas! Please call me at 215.416.7489 or email me at marci@takeabreakfromcancer.org!
With Gratitude, Marci Schankweiler, FPS Founder and CEO
When you invest in FPS and our families, you get scientifically supported results. For the past 18 years, we have chronicled the improved outcomes of oncology patients and their families. The For Pete Sake Patient Registry is a longitudinal study that measures the results of the care provided.
FPS has presented twice at the American Psychosocial Oncology Society (APOS) national conference on the therapeutic benefit of respite. In Spring of 2022, Dr. Natalie Hamrick presented five years of research data at the APOS 19th Annual Conference in a presentation titled, Cancer Families’ Intentional Respite Experience, Family Dynamics and Positive Outlook.
Working with our dedicated nominators, we were able to serve 487 people with respite.
For those too ill to travel, we provide Staycation respite experiences. The FPS Staycation program equips families with resources for respite, reflection and financial relief when a family is unable to travel due to advanced stage cancer. This opportunity allows families to connect and create magical moments within their own homes.
Our Family Health Pillars
In 2022, we finalized 7 Family Health Pillars outlining the impact of FPS Respite on families facing cancer. These Family Health Pillars are expansive and guide us in creating a meaningful Respite Experience for each nominated family.
Ensuring a family’s overall health is strong during the cancer journey is critical to coping with this disease in the best way possible. Respite has therapeutic benefits that span from emotional to physical to psychosocial, with lots in between! And these benefits are not just for the patient, but also the caregiver and children of the patient.
While on Travel Respite at Woodloch, families participate in carefully sourced activities that address the benefits, including meditation and chair yoga, cupcake wars, art therapy, nature walks and team building activities. The FPS Staycation Respite includes materials that address the areas of health outlined above within the confines of a family’s home. Moreover, no family has a financial burden to experience respite, creating care-free and cost-free time together. We will be sharing more about our health pillars and our FPS Respite Model in the years ahead!
Watch this special performance from Dierks Bentley created especially for For Pete's Sake to honor FPS Families last winter! Huey is featured in this video, as well as many other families who received Travel Respite in December and January of last year.
Our commitment is to building community. Each month, a group of families experience Travel Respite together at Woodloch Resort in the Pennsylvania Poconos. Daily optional activities are coordinated by FPS Volunteer Facilitators with the goal to unite families facing cancer through respite and improve the 7 FPS Health Pillars.
For families in the FPS program, we offer support beyond the respite that assists them as their journey with cancer continues. This support continues to address our 7 health pillars and comes in many forms.
We provide complimentary in person events each year to bring together our Respite Recipients and members of our donor and volunteer community! With over seven hundred attendees at these events, we ensure our families have adequate opportunities to continue to explore ongoing friendships and support and continue to promote the take a break mantra and experience a boost in psychosocial, emotional, physical and family health. We invite our healthcare professionals to these events as well, giving the oncology professionals safe space to strengthen their relationships with their patients outside of the clinical setting.
FPS partners with corporations, individuals, and schools to provide Christmas cheer in the form of gifts and direct financial support to FPS Families experiencing financial duress and/or the loss of a spouse or parent. Volunteers are critical to this effort and with their assistance, do family to family outreach to ensure our FPS families’ financial and emotional health is boosted during the holiday season.
We understand that for some, the acceptance and management of grief is part of a family’s respite journey. We are here to respond with kindness, dignity and support. Our resources impact spiritual, emotional, psychosocial and family health. We offer peer to peer support with our Carry on Club, a social club for widows and widowers in our Respite Program, and provide reminders of hope like our annual “angel” mailing which includes handmade angel ornaments sent to grieving FPS families.
We also produce bi-monthly patient and caregiver newsletters which provide educational resources, uplifting stories, and nutrition and financial practice information for families. We share materials and webinars via our private Facebook group targeted at patients and caregivers. Most importantly, to assess the unique needs of each family, our patients and surviving partners are put on a call schedule managed by our Program Coordinators. This outreach process also involves a coordinated effort of volunteers and provides a basis for us to recognize what other resources, if necessary, should be shared with a family in our program.
Our Respite Reinforced efforts resulted in 22,473 touchpoints to FPS Families in one year!
Our 2021 Golf Tournament raised $110,168! Pictured here is our Founder and CEO, Marci, at our special luau themed dinner with FPS Advisory Board Member, Jeff Boyle and volunteer, Ellen Reilly.
Thank you to longtime supporters, the Bello Family, for ensuring our Gala returned in 2022! The Gala was chaired by Kristin and Christopher Williamson, Megan and Jim Wright and Patrick J. Bello, Esq. and it raised $155,560 for our mission.
We were excited to return to Citizens Bank Park for our annual For Pete's Sake, Walk! We moved the walk to the late afternoon and used glow items to illuminate the stadium with love for families facing cancer. Our walkers and sponsors helped us raise $107,011 for our mission!
We were also able to gather our NY supporters at our Annual NYC Happy Hour once again! This incredible community raised $95,150 for our mission and we heard a beautiful testimony from FPS Respite Recipient, Nahomi Enrico. Thank you to our NY council for ensuring this event returned with much success: Peter Ma, Colleen Koh, Cayla Cheng, Mike Gentile, Cameron Neely, Carol Perez and Rob Piszko
Revenue from all events includes Annual Appeal donations received at the event.
Our community events are 100% volunteer led and raise critical funds and awareness for our mission! We are grateful to every person, school, church and company that hosted a fundraiser to help provide families with FPS Respite! Here are a few events that took place in 2021-2022.
Sienna Noh donated the fees from field hockey lessons to For Pete's Sake and when she became a referee for a field hockey league, she donated her first earnings to FPS in memory of her Granpop Bo, who passed away from cancer in 2016.
We are inspired by Sienna's generosity and grateful for her kind heart!
The Salamone Family received an FPS Respite many years ago and continues to give back each year! Bumping for a Break is a great way to involve your volleyball team and have some FUN(draising)! We also offer Bouncing for a Break and Take a Break Clubs to engage the student population and encourage philanthropic growth.
We pride ourselves in being excellent stewards of our donor's dollars. Therefore, we support a culture of complete transparency in all of our operations and fiscal spending. We are one of only 200 organizations nationwide to hold the PANO Standards for Excellence Accreditation and we hold the Guidestar Platinum Seal. We are rated a 4 star charity by Charity Navigator and a top-rated nonprofit by GreatNonprofits!
FPS prides itself on sustainability.
We want to ensure we will always be here for future families in the cancer crisis.
Because of this, we launched an endowment in 2015 which is permanently restricted for FPS’ future. We also have a planned giving program and a charitable remainder unit trust. These revenue sources account for some of the additional income reported in our financials. Our finance and audit committees are comprised of processionals in their fields and they manage our assets. When you invest in FPS, you invest in a nonprofit you can trust.
When you support our mission, you help families TODAY and provide relief from the stress of cancer. We offer the opportunity for our donors to directly support FPS Travel Respites and receive video testimonies after the respite is complete through "Mission Possible". These donations, along with our Monthly Memory Maker donations, are restricted to directly support our program.
If you are not on our email list, please join so we can share the stories with you (visit www.takeabreakfromcancer.org and scroll to the bottom of the website to join)! Your heart will be forever changed once you connect with an FPS Family in this meaningful way. See one of our video testimonies below from Nahomi, a young mom.
Nahomi was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer in December 2020. She immediately went on very strong chemotherapy and for 5 months, her and her family’s lives were focused on one thing: survival.
Nahomi is grateful for the sacrifices her husband and children have made; quarantining from others, working from home, and doing online school all while caring for her. She wanted to find a special way to thank them, and to spend some special time together, so when her oncology team told her about the FPS Travel Respite program, she was ecstatic to participate! The family experienced Travel Respite at Woodloch Resort in October 2022.
FPS IS PROUD TO RECEIVE GIFTS FROM THOUSANDS OF CORPORATE AND INDIVIDUAL DONORS EACH YEAR. OUR GIVING COMMUNITIES CREATE SUSTAINING, FUTURE AND LASTING INCOME. CLICK ON THE LINKS BELOW TO VIEW THE MEMBERS.
Our Healing, Hope and Happiness endowment aims to be the primary source from which perpetual respite support continues year after year. Thank to you our endowment donors.
Our Monthly Memory Makers donate a designated amount to For Pete’s Sake each month as a way to sustain our mission. Each month, this gift gives families facing cancer the most precious gift of time together.
Our Planned Giving supporters have said “yes” to leaving a legacy of hope—a legacy that will forever link their life story to adult cancer patients and their families helped through For Pete’s Sake. No gift is too small and we encourage to give in honor or in memory of a loved one! If you have already named For Pete’s Sake in your estate, please email Marci@takeabreakfromcancer.org to let her know.
Every donor plays a role in making For Pete's Sake a viable organization. We thank each one of these donors for their generous support!
We remember those who are no longer with us and are thankful for our supporters who make such meaningful gifts in memory of loved ones.
We celebrate the members of our community who donate their birthdays, anniversaries and more!
Thank you for your BOLD support of our mission! You helped us transform hundreds of lives in one year! We'd also like to thank our BOLD volunteers that give selflessly of their time and talent to help our families. If you'd like to contribute to our mission in a meaningful way, please email info@takeabreakfromcancer.org or call the office at 267.708.0510.
Sincerely, The FPS Board of Directors and Staff