Baca Family Story

Chris Baca is deeply connected to the Havertown community. He works for Haverford Township in the Highway Department; He's been a volunteer firefighter for the Oakmont Fire Company for the past 20 years; He's been a bartender at the Palombaro Club (also known as "the big club") for more years than he can remember. He has given to the community in so many ways, and now it is our chance to give back to him!

After years of hard labor, Chris's body taken a beating, especially his back. A degenerative disc has now led to herniation, and the only thing that may alleviate the excruciating pain that he's been in for years now is back surgery. His surgery will have him extremely limited and unable to do much for 12 weeks. And while being out of work for 12 weeks will certainly be a strain on his family's finances, his wife Ashley is even more concerned about having to care for Chris, the couple's 3 children, and the general responsibilities of running a household on her own - while she continues working full-time in a medical office at Penn.

Chris and Ashley have a true partnership and share responsibilities of running their household and caring for the children, ages 17, 7, and 5. Chris primarily took care of all of the shopping and the cooking, and he will be unable to do either while he recovers. He'll be unable to help with things like bathing the kids, pick up and drop off from school, and other parenting responsibilites, as well. And while they have a good extended family support system, we can take some of the burden off of these hard-working parents by providing financial assistance, gift cards for take out meals, household goods, groceries, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, prepared meals for dinner!

If you love to cook, your homecooked meal would be a real blessing for this family. If you don't love to cook but know the power of a hot meal on the table each night, having a meal delivered from your favorite restaurant would be an equal blessing. And making or sending a meal that provides leftovers for the next night would help this family in more ways than you can imagine!

Let's come together to support Chris and Ashley and have their backs (ok, pun intended!) as they face the next few months of Chris's recovery!