Steven Weinberg is that kind of person who not only would like to help others, but really enjoying doing so. That is 【B1】 he joined forces with his wife, Mary, and a cancer survivor Paul Young to found Hospitality for Family and Friends, Inc. The 【B2】 group helps find unsold hotel rooms for families and friends of cancer patients or for patients themselves the night before an early morning operation or 【B3】 .
"The other day we got a call from a woman who had driven all the way from Michigan to get her husband to Memorial Sloan-Kettering for treatment," said Weinberg. "She and her sons had no place to stay, so the hospital’’s 【B4】 of social work suggested they 【B5】 us. We found a room for them at last."
Since hotel 【B6】 can be very expensive, Weinberg and his volunteer staff find rooms where families can stay—free of charge of course—for one or two nights. They work with 8 hospitals and 19 hotels.
"We’’re 【B7】 on increasing the number of 【B8】 hotels in the New York area now, this is the place where we start our program and we have a lot of connections here" , Weinberg said. "When we first started our program, we can not imagine the program is so 【B9】 now. And we hope someday we can take the program 【B10】 ."
And in these years of helping others, we come to understand more about people’’s needs, and those needs do not necessarily 【B11】 financial support. One time, there was a 60-year-old man calling us, asking if we could 【B12】 a room near the hospital for him to stay before his major operation. We agreed, and managed to find one room of 3-minute walking distance from the hospital. And after we 【B13】 our promise, he told us the truth.
He is a man of large means, and he can well afford to live in a 【B14】 hotel. The reason why he chose to 【B15】 us for help is that he wanted to live in a place that 【B16】 like a home. He is actually wealthy, and he has several sons and daughters, but none of them could 【B17】 him to go through the painful operation because of their busy schedule.
Since it began 【B18】 two years ago, the group has received many letters of 【B19】 . A patient from Pennsylvania wrote:" Your kind service provided me with peace of mind going into surgery 【B20】 that my wife was safe nearby."