Saturday, October 12, 2013

Worthy cause for your charity dolalrs

 Teddy Atlas has brought together public and private sources to raise money for handicapped and those afflicted with a variety of diseases in Staten Island.

Todd Maisel/Daily New



Teddy Atlas at his foundation’s headquarters.




Stop.


Please, don’t send that holiday charity check anywhere else but to the Dr. Theodore Atlas Foundation.


Here’s why.


This year, after caring for hundreds of victims of Hurricane Sandy, Teddy Atlas’ excellent grass-roots charity needs big-time help itself.


For 17 straight years, I’ve reported in this space examples of the downtrodden, sick and luckless that the Atlas Foundation — named for his late saintly medical doctor father who made missionary-style gratis house calls on Staten Island — has helped with money from its annual celebrity-studded fund-raising dinner.


That money is distributed by Teddy Atlas himself with the same integrity he brings to boxing. He helps the people that bloodless bureaucracy, heartless insurance companies and intractable brand-name charities let fall through the cracks.


“We helped a guy this year who was swimming on a Staten Island beach with his wife and three little kids,” says Teddy. “Built like a fighter, he gets hit with a big wave. All his kids laugh because they can’t see Daddy, who’s always playing around. ‘Wait! There’s Daddy.’ Doing the dead man’s float. Kidding around as usual.”


Only this poor guy wasn’t kidding around.


“That wave heaved him against a sandbar, leaving him paraplegic,” says Atlas.


“Can’t support his family. In a wheelchair. Insurance covers some medical stuff. But not other big stuff like a ramp to get in the house, a special shower, shower chair. So the Doc Atlas Foundation got the family that stuff. The family had just signed a $ 250-a-month lease for a modest car. But now they needed a special van. They couldn’t get out of the car lease.”


The Atlas Foundation convinced the company to void the car lease.


“A great leasing company in Jersey named Route 22 Honda customized this poor guy a handicap-friendly van,” says Atlas. “They absorbed most of the costs. We paid the balance. The insurance would only pay for physical therapy for one day a week but in the first year you need four days a week to have any chance of success. We found a therapist to do it free for five days.


“But the killer to me was the insurance company paying for only four colostomy bags a week. When his wife said he uses several a day, the insurance rep said, ‘Wash them out and reuse them.’ How does a human being get those words out of her mouth? Anyway, we paid for a year’s supply of colostomy bags, too.”


Only the Atlas Foundation does stuff like this.


“We had a widow, Mary Roberts, 90, house wrecked by Sandy,” says Atlas. “When she was displaced, burglars robbed her and torched the house. Every window was destroyed. So we bought her all new windows for $ 8,000 that insurance wouldn’t cover.”





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