Editor’s note: Project Yechi is a unique organization that was formed to cover mortgage or rent payments for families undergoing cancer treatments. Below is the text of Jackie Feigenbaum’s speech to the attendees of the Project Yechi barbecue last Motzei Shabbat, in which he shared several letters from those who have been assisted.

Project Yechi: A concept conceived by a young man stricken with cancer simply trying to help others not as fortunate as he was—to recognize it and to feel the pain of others. Throughout Chaim’s ordeal he saw and experienced the chesed of so many organizations that help cancer patients. Organizations that feed your children, organizations that have summer camps, organizations that stock your freezer, organizations that babysit your kids, organizations that drive you to and from hospitals, organizations that help you get medical insurance and pay prescription bills. So much good, so much chesed,­ yet not one organization was willing to commit to pay your rent or mortgage while you are undergoing treatments and you cannot work.

If I may, I would like to read you three letters we received:

Dear Project Yechi,

I am a 37-year-old male, married with four children. By profession I am a locksmith. I have worked as a locksmith for 15 years. Life was great until a year ago; I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. At that time, I continued to work for three additional months, but then I became too sick and weak to work. I needed to stop. These past seven months we have gone through all our savings and we have nothing left.

A social worker informed me of your organization and the chesed that you do. I would like to know if I qualify to receive some kind of assistance in paying my monthly mortgage. For 15 years I paid all my bills and tuition and never had to ask anyone for help. Now I really don’t know where to turn. Bills are piling up and the pressure is immense and on top of that I am undergoing chemo treatments trying to get cured. I have attached my applications with references and a monthly mortgage. Please, please help.

Brooklyn, NY

That was last year. I received this a few weeks ago from the same gentleman.

To my friends at Project Yechi:

For now I am cancer-free. I have gone back to work as a locksmith. I am able to work eight hours a day and things are looking up. I still feel weak at times but the doctors tell me that is to be expected. Hopefully my fatigue problem will go away as well.

Words cannot describe the hakarat hatov that I and my family have for your organization. For six months you paid my mortgage bill and allowed me and my family to be worry-free. The peace of mind knowing that my wife and children did not have to be concerned how they were going to pay the mortgage was a tremendous help. I don’t know if I will ever be able to repay Project Yechi but I hope and pray that one day in the  near future I will be able to contribute to Project Yechi and assist other cancer patients with their monthly payments. For now please accept my sincerest thank you.

Brooklyn, NY

And a final letter:

As I lay on my sick couch, recuperating from my cancer surgery for six weeks, I knew that I would be moving on to radiation and chemotherapy. Too weak from the treatments to so much as hold a book long enough to sometimes read even a page, I found that I was better able to listen to shiurim. One of the themes of so many shiurim I’ve heard is that in Lashon Hakodesh words are precise and their meaning deep. The words on which I want to focus are hakarat hatov. My gratitude to Project Yechi cannot be adequately expressed. In addition to the horrors of the disease, treatment and recovery take a financial toll upon the sick person and his or her family.

Sick people, I believe, can easily become indigent people due to the expenses of the disease.  Aside from waiting for months for disability to send me two-thirds of my salary, while constantly requiring documentation that was accurately provided by the doctor in the first place, there are less-obvious expenses—my husband who, as a lifetime type I diabetic, is disabled and visually impaired due to his disease. There are so many other expenses as well.

My son told us about Project Yechi. In a short time, without bureaucracy, you informed us that you can make our mortgage payments. You paid for five months! How can my husband or I ever express enough hakarat hatov, gratitude, for the concrete help as well as the peace of mind that you gave us? It’s been said before and should be said often—Mi Ki’amcha Yisrael? Like we say in the tefillah Nishmat, if our mouths were overflowing with song as the ocean is vast and our tongues filled with joy as bountiful as the waves, we could never thank you enough.

We wish that we could pay you back and, b’ezrat Hashem, bli neder, if the time comes that we can, we will. But better yet, we dream of a time when we will no longer have sickness and tzarot—we look forward to the arrival of Mashiach. Project Yechi will be leading a welcoming chorus because of the chesed that you have done for us and for so many others.

Tizku L’mitzvot

To date we have helped over 130 families and we have made over 360 monthly rent and mortgage payments directly to landlords, banks and mortgage companies. Last year, we distributed $300,000. This year we are on pace to distribute close to a half million dollars. Unfortunately we still have applications to process… Project Yechi is an organization without a payroll or overhead expenses, an organization totally made up of volunteers, an organization where every dollar raised goes to pay a cancer patient’s rent or mortgage. Learn more at http://www.projectyechi.org.

By Jackie Feigenbaum