Michelle’s Place, is a Breast Cancer Resource Center in Temecula, California. Recently, I met with their Director, Kim Goodnough, to discuss the possibility of providing counseling services to family members and their clients who are battling cancer. One statement Kim made to me broke my heart; “Many who come to our center come from the county and don’t have any money to pay for insurance, so they can’t afford counseling either.” The sad thing is, even with insurance, many find the insurance is so limited, restricted, specific, and expensive, they are better off not having insurance at all. The fact they have insurance means they must pay copays and deductibles, which they wouldn’t have had to pay previously, and until they meet their deductibles they now do not have access to medical or mental health care. Even having Medical, which has a “O” deductible, does not mean they will receive the quality of care they need due to limitations of services. Medical also has limitations which restrict payments to clinicians and so providers have the “option” of providing services at greatly reduced prices, for free, or to turn away those using Medical. This is a very sad situation and the reason Encouragers Counseling & Training Centers, Inc. (Encouragers) was created.
The Bible says:
“The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.” Matthew 9:37
Encouragers is designed to provide low-cost and free counseling services through a unique approach which comes from the philosophy of the McDonald’s 25 cent hamburger: If we can sell enough inexpensive burgers and keep our overhead low, we will be able to serve “millions.” There’s a saying which I love, “A rising tide raises all ships.” What I gleam from this is that if enough people, enough organizations come together to collaborate for a common solution, then many will benefit. If we can be humble enough to provide the same high-quality services at lower costs, we can help more than if we only look at our needs and charge accordingly. I have seen that many organizations and non-profits share my commitment to helping, but everyone knows the financial support is not available. So I offer that if Encouragers can help for a small portion of the monies, then “all ships will rise.”
If you know of an organization or non-profit who could use our services and is of like-mind, please contact me. There is a tidal wave of need , let’s meet that by collaborating our resources to find solutions.