Marla Neal

Marla Needs Your Urgent Help!

Spending quality time with family and friends has always been very important to Marla Neal. As a young divorcee, mother of a toddler, full-time employee, and college student, much of Marla’s time was spent balancing the parts of her life; especially spending quality time with the gift of her life, her son Christopher. In time, it became clear that Marla was being challenged by illness. After 16 years of working, fibromyalgia presented a new challenge, permanently disabling Marla at the age of 43. Several years later, Marla learned that she had inherited Polycystic Kidney Disease. She is now in end stage renal failure, and desperately needs a kidney transplant and your help.

Marla attributes her success to her faith. From her services at work and church, helping or enriching someone else’s life has always been part of who Marla is. She’s helped many adults in all sectors of corporate Chicago achieve the goal of beginning or returning to college to obtain a degree while maintaining their full-time employment. As an employee of her alma mater, Roosevelt University, she helped recruit and academically advise non-degreed corporate employees wanting to begin a graduate program; Marla was a living example that it could be done. After transplant, Marla is looking forward to again living life with zest, traveling with her family, dearest friends, church family, and just singing and acting goofy around the house with her grown son.

Medicare and Medicaid do not cover all of the cost of pre and post kidney transplant treatment; medications, copays, hospital and doctor fees are tremendous expenses on a limited income. In addition, Marla will need to relocate for 6 months around the time of transplant. After many years of helping others, Marla is now the one who needs your help.

To help with the financial burden of Marla’s uninsured expenses, a fundraising campaign in her honor has been established with HelpHOPELive, a trusted nonprofit organization that has been providing community-based fundraising guidance to patients and their families for more than 30 years. All donations are tax-deductible, are held by HelpHOPELive in the North-Central Kidney Transplant Fund, and are administered by HelpHOPELive for transplant-related expenses only. Please consider making a contribution by clicking donate now.

With sincere gratitude,

Christopher T. Roberts, Marla’s son
[email protected]