Group gives financial reprieve to families

SARASOTA — Three months after her 13-month-old son, Blaze, died of liver cancer, Lisa Moore recognized the man’s face on the donation box at Yoder’s restaurant. His name was Joe and Moore used to wait tables with him.

The donations were being collected to help Joe and his premature daughter, Addie, overcome the sudden loss of Addie’s mother, who carried her for just 25 weeks before a fatal car crash took her life.

Moore called the number on the donation box and asked him how she could help. Joe asked for a ride to St. Joseph’s Hospital neonatal intensive care unit in Tampa to see Addie.

“She weighed 1 pound, 7 ounces when I met her,” Moore said.

Little did Moore know at the time that she would eventually raise that baby as her own. And 15 years later, Addie would grow up to help Moore with Blaze of Hope, a nonprofit that helps relieve parents of financial stress while they tend to their sick child.