Joe Andruzzi Foundation helps those impacted by cancer by funding everyday needs
It is delivery day, and only NewsCenter 5 is riding alongside Patriots legend Joe Andruzzi as the three-time Super Bowl champion prepares to run an awesome surprise play.
Stop and Shop and Poland Spring teamed up with the football great and his foundation to gift a year's supply of groceries and water to a mother of two fighting cancer.
"You got patients who choose between putting food on the table or buying their medicine — (that) shouldn't happen," Andruzzi said.
Since 2008, the Joe Andruzzi Foundation has been helping patients and families impacted by cancer by funding everyday needs. It was a form of lymphoma that ended Andruzzi's remarkable football career. So Andruzzi and his wife Jen are devoted to this work, which is especially meaningful on this One Boston Day.
"You know, we were there in 2013 — everybody from that day is paying it forward and helping those in need," Andruzzi said.
On the receiving end, Norton's Carrie Foster, who was told all this was happening to film a video for JAF before she got the news.
"(We have her) food for a year and water for a year," Andruzzi said.
The scale of that gift was overwhelming.
"That you so much," Foster said.
Due to the intensive treatment required since her diagnosis last year, Foster has not been able to work, but when she can, she gardens.
"It's a work in progress," Foster said.
Surrounded by daffodils that Foster planted, a flower now synonymous with the marathon, this day felt meant to be.
"The garden right here, Carrie put in when she knew she was sick," Foster's mother, Kristen Schuknecht, said.
In addition to that amazing gift for the Fosters, Stop and Shop and Poland Spring each gifted the JAF $25,000 to support other New Englanders impacted by cancer.
"It's just going to be so helpful, you know?" Foster said. "What's amazing about their foundation is they really, they help in such a tangible way."
To date, JAF has helped some 47,000 patients and families, granting over $13 million in gifts.
"I'm just so thankful, so very thankful," Schuknecht said.