My name is Jerome Cooper. I served in the army for 10 years. During Desert Storm, we were positioned in eyesight of the oil well fires. For the past fifteen years, I have served my local community through my church's food pantry. During COVID, we stayed open, serving hundreds 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, as we were the only pantry open in a 3-county radius until things started to open back up.

During this time, our church started delivering hot meals to Oneida families once a week. I was in charge of kitchen operations. Our soup kitchen opened serving one day a week in 2021; today, we serve 50 meals a day, 3 days a week. Up until this week, I oversaw this. We also served meals during the state of emergency during the Rome tornado and more recently the flooding and power outages Oneida faced.

I had to step down this week as I was diagnosed with esophagus cancer. The VA will cover only my treatments, so I am embarrassed to have to reach out this way. I will not only be dealing with a loss of income, I will also face financial difficulties with travel, food for the feeding tube that was placed in, homecare, and other things the social worker told me to think about. I still hope to be strong enough to volunteer here and there because I am not giving up, but I need to think about final arrangements as well. My family and I have much to deal with, and not having financial burdens hanging over our heads will be a huge burden lifted, one of them being my daughter going through med school. She is an honor student hoping to help low-income families who have children with cancer. Any funds not used for this difficult time will be turned over to a program for veterans with cancer. Please donate, forward, and share! Thank you so much for your support!