The seed for Live Care was planted when two friends met by chance over coffee. However, the founders of Live Care each have their own backgrounds and stories that led them here.
Greg
My wife has always been tenacious and resilient, probably in part to the makeup of her family. My wife is the youngest of five children, three of which have Limb-girdle muscular dystrophy. Although my wife does not have MD, its presence in her family has had far-reaching effects. From my own viewpoint and perhaps from other members of the extended family, the challenges seemed manageable—until they weren’t. Like any other degenerative disease, MD took its toll, in time. It quickly became evident that my brother-in-law and two sisters-in-law would need more help than they currently had available.
But most people don’t have money to pay for full or even part-time in-home care. Instead, the husbands became the de facto caregivers to their wives as well as to their brother-in-law, who had no help to speak of. Not everyone has a family caregiver who can step up if needed, and even when that caregiver is present, helping out means accepting what will eventually become a full-time job. There was also the concern of my own aging parents.
I found myself wishing that there was more I could do to help, despite living no small distance away. I looked into local and national programs that might pay for affordable in-home care options to my loved ones who needed it. What I found was disheartening, to say the least; the financial thresholds placed on such assistance programs demanded little to no income, which would do anything but solve the problems at hand. The gravity of this problem weighed on me greatly, and I wanted to do something concrete to provide aid to more than just my loved ones.
George
Taking care of aging parents isn’t something you think about until you have to. So it was a sudden and unwelcome event when my mother's good health unexpectedly took a serious turn for the worse. She needed help, but lived alone. Fortunately, I and the rest of my siblings lived close enough to check in on her regularly, but we quickly found that this wouldn’t be enough. It was time for full-time in-home care.
There was no insurance, and nothing else to provide for the cost of the care. Initially, one of my sisters moved in to be there for her, but job and other family obligations quickly proved too much to juggle. My family looked in vain for sources of assistance, but we discovered there wasn't much available unless mom was penniless or without assets. Mom's house was paid for, but her income was limited to a Social Security check, leaving home maintenance and other basic expenses wanting. Ultimately, the cost of providing professional care fell to me. I was fortunate enough to have some money set aside. This lasted through my mom's illnesses, and eventually through hospice and her funeral.
It wasn't until after my mom passed away that I realized our current system of elder care was broken. There is some help for the poorest, and the wealthiest can arrange for their own care, but there is a vast population in the middle that can't qualify for help and can't realistically afford to bear the full cost of ever-rising assisted care services.
Coming together to lift burdens
It was with these separate but similar issues weighing on us that Greg and I happened to run into each other at a local coffee house. Rather than leaving it at a friendly greeting and parting ways, Greg decided to stay to catch up. That decision changed my life and his, and hopefully that of many of our fellow Americans. I found out that our concerns for parents and family were similar, and that our wishes to help were equal. It was then that the idea to make help available for this new and increasingly important family burden was brought to light.
We recognized that many aging populations need incremental care that increases over time, and the next generation would bear the brunt of this burden and its associated costs. The baby boomer generation is the largest, but most haven’t been able to save enough for retirement, let alone for in-home care costs. In turn, the next generation will find it even more difficult to save or provide for their own care when the time comes because they'll be caring for their own parents. This breakdown of financial stability will likely lead to a society-wide problem where successive generations are each tasked with taking care of their children and their parents, creating a never-ending cycle of need.
To the best of our ability, Live Care Foundation exists to help curtail that trend by making charitable grants available to those who need the extra help. If you are able, please consider making a gift to help us in our mission. Thank you for taking the time to read our stories, and for any donation you might be considering!
Greg
My wife has always been tenacious and resilient, probably in part to the makeup of her family. My wife is the youngest of five children, three of which have Limb-girdle muscular dystrophy. Although my wife does not have MD, its presence in her family has had far-reaching effects. From my own viewpoint and perhaps from other members of the extended family, the challenges seemed manageable—until they weren’t. Like any other degenerative disease, MD took its toll, in time. It quickly became evident that my brother-in-law and two sisters-in-law would need more help than they currently had available.
But most people don’t have money to pay for full or even part-time in-home care. Instead, the husbands became the de facto caregivers to their wives as well as to their brother-in-law, who had no help to speak of. Not everyone has a family caregiver who can step up if needed, and even when that caregiver is present, helping out means accepting what will eventually become a full-time job. There was also the concern of my own aging parents.
I found myself wishing that there was more I could do to help, despite living no small distance away. I looked into local and national programs that might pay for affordable in-home care options to my loved ones who needed it. What I found was disheartening, to say the least; the financial thresholds placed on such assistance programs demanded little to no income, which would do anything but solve the problems at hand. The gravity of this problem weighed on me greatly, and I wanted to do something concrete to provide aid to more than just my loved ones.
George
Taking care of aging parents isn’t something you think about until you have to. So it was a sudden and unwelcome event when my mother's good health unexpectedly took a serious turn for the worse. She needed help, but lived alone. Fortunately, I and the rest of my siblings lived close enough to check in on her regularly, but we quickly found that this wouldn’t be enough. It was time for full-time in-home care.
There was no insurance, and nothing else to provide for the cost of the care. Initially, one of my sisters moved in to be there for her, but job and other family obligations quickly proved too much to juggle. My family looked in vain for sources of assistance, but we discovered there wasn't much available unless mom was penniless or without assets. Mom's house was paid for, but her income was limited to a Social Security check, leaving home maintenance and other basic expenses wanting. Ultimately, the cost of providing professional care fell to me. I was fortunate enough to have some money set aside. This lasted through my mom's illnesses, and eventually through hospice and her funeral.
It wasn't until after my mom passed away that I realized our current system of elder care was broken. There is some help for the poorest, and the wealthiest can arrange for their own care, but there is a vast population in the middle that can't qualify for help and can't realistically afford to bear the full cost of ever-rising assisted care services.
Coming together to lift burdens
It was with these separate but similar issues weighing on us that Greg and I happened to run into each other at a local coffee house. Rather than leaving it at a friendly greeting and parting ways, Greg decided to stay to catch up. That decision changed my life and his, and hopefully that of many of our fellow Americans. I found out that our concerns for parents and family were similar, and that our wishes to help were equal. It was then that the idea to make help available for this new and increasingly important family burden was brought to light.
We recognized that many aging populations need incremental care that increases over time, and the next generation would bear the brunt of this burden and its associated costs. The baby boomer generation is the largest, but most haven’t been able to save enough for retirement, let alone for in-home care costs. In turn, the next generation will find it even more difficult to save or provide for their own care when the time comes because they'll be caring for their own parents. This breakdown of financial stability will likely lead to a society-wide problem where successive generations are each tasked with taking care of their children and their parents, creating a never-ending cycle of need.
To the best of our ability, Live Care Foundation exists to help curtail that trend by making charitable grants available to those who need the extra help. If you are able, please consider making a gift to help us in our mission. Thank you for taking the time to read our stories, and for any donation you might be considering!
Photo used under Creative Commons from Rod Raglin