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Exactly What Life Should Be Made Of “Life is mostly froth and bubble, two things stand like stone. Kindness in another’s struggle, courage in your own.” Jeff Lewis first heard these words — a part of Australian poet Adam Lindsay Gordon’s work entitled “Ye Weary Wayfarer” — spoken by Princess Diana at a Washington D.C. breast cancer fundraiser in 1996. Never in his wildest dreams did he imagine how they would change his life. Twenty-one years later, in August 2017, Lewis was diagnosed with stage II prostate cancer. He opted for a nine-week radiation treatment, which left him fatigued, but feeling like he had dodged a huge bullet. He had heard the horror stories of aggressive treatments and poor outcomes. He was so grateful, in fact, he decided to do something nice for strangers every day of his treatment. He bought coffee for people behind him in line. He helped shoppers carry their groceries. The size of his kindness didn’t matter, it was simply the doing. Then he decided to bring three dozen donuts to his treatments once a week to share with patients and staff. “I’m Jewish; bringing food to people is in my blood,” Lewis said. “As I bit into a cream-filled donut one day, the social worker I was speaking with told me one of the patients in the infusion center supplemented his meals with treats like I had brought. That hit me like a ton of bricks.” It’s called financial toxicity, and between 30 to 50 percent of all cancer patients experience it. Insurance premiums, deductibles, out-of- pocket costs and lost wages are crippling for many patients. Often these patients are so strapped, they must choose between paying for treatment and buying groceries. Lewis told the social worker he’d take care of that man’s groceries throughout the rest of his treatment. And just like that, Lewis launched what became the Froth and Bubble Foundation for Food Assistance, based on the sentiment of that beautiful quote. He filed his paperwork to become a nonprofit organization while still completing his own treatment. The premise is simple. The foundation buys grocery gift cards to be distributed to patients FROTH AND BUBBLE Judy Pearson | Contributing Writer Froth and Bubble Foundation founder Jeff Lewis with boardmember Allison Gloyd SEPTEMBER 2019 | FRONTDOORS MEDIA 35 A 2ND ACT { helping is healing }