LUNG HEALTH BLOG

We have great news! 

We relaunched out “care package” program for lung transplant patients in April 2022!

Unfortunately, we had to pause this program in 2021 due to lack of funding, but it's back!
This means if you emailed us requesting a care package, we are sending one out to you.
We are ordering supplies and putting together new care packages as we speak. 

But...

We can't do this without your help.

There are about 2,000 lung transplants done in the U.S. every year. This number has increased due to COVID-19. Our ultimate goal is to make sure every lung transplant patient receives a care package with all the essentials they need to live a healthy life after their transplant. 

Please donate to our Lung Transplant Patient Support Program so we can get these care packages to as many lung transplant patients as possible.

Please help us change the statistics and increase the survival rate of lung transplant recipients by donating to our Lung Transplant Patient Support Program today.

We want to wish all of you a very happy 2022!
We hope that 2022 will bring more joy, prosperity, and good health to you and your loved ones.
As we continue to live through a global pandemic, it's important to reflect on our accomplishments through the past year and look forward to our goals for the new year.

2021 Accomplishments

In 2021, due to COVID-19, our funding was severely cut. However, our organization survived another year of the pandemic! We are proud that we have been able to stay running (at a lower capacity) so far and we have no plans of stopping.
In 2021, we were able to:

1.) Continue publishing educational information about lung health.
2.) Continue keeping our donors updated through our monthly newsletters.
3.) Take time to restructure and reorganize our Lung Transplant Patient Support Program while it was on hold.
5.) Open a new online merchandise store with brand new Lung Girl merchandise with international shipping.
6.) Work with a grant writer to help us increase revenue for 2022
7.) Raise funds despite a pandemic through Facebook, Amazon Smile, and individual donations on our website.

Thank you to all of you who donated to our charity or helped us raise funds in 2021! You are helping us keep going so we can continue to help lung transplant patients. 

To those of you who requested a Lung Transplant Patient "care package" in 2021, we haven't forgotten about you. Please keep reading for some good news!

2022 Goals
We have ambitious goals for 2022. This year we will:

1.) Increase revenue through grants, sponsorships, sales, fundraisers, and marketing.
2.) Relaunch our Lung Transplant Patient Support Program with

• More patient fundraisers.
• New care packages - if you requested one in 2021, you are on our waitlist and will be receiving one this year!
• More inspiring lung transplant patient interviews.
• Increased outreach so we can help as many lung transplant patients as possible.

3.) Increase community events (workshops, fundraisers, laughter yoga classes, etc.).
4.) Increase online educational content.
5.) Increase the impact our organization is making in the community.

In the United States, surgeons perform about 2,000 lung transplants every year. This has increased due to COVID-19 patients that need new lungs. Our mission is to be able to help every single lung transplant patient in the country through funding lung transplant research and supporting the patients with medical bills and other resources. This is the only way to change the dreary statistics of lung transplantation and save lives. 

We are very excited to keep working and growing the impact of our nonprofit organization in 2022. We hope that you will join us in our mission. 

If you would like to support us with any of these goals, please donate now. 

As you all may know by now, January 2nd is Sid Vahal’s birthday!

Every year, we celebrate his birthday along with a new year. The Sid Foundation was created to keep Sid’s legacy alive and help lung transplant patients like him beat the odds. 

Today, Sid would have been 36 years old. Although lung transplant complications took him away at 29 years old, he will always be with us in our hearts.  

Thank you for helping us keep Sid’s legacy alive by supporting The Sid Foundation!


You can learn more about Sid’s story here.

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First, we want to acknowledge how difficult 2020 was. Many of us lost friends and family to COVID-19. Our country continues to be in a state of racial unrest. So many people are struggling for food and shelter. It was an especially dangerous year for lung transplant patients because of their compromised immune system which increases their chances of dying from COVID-19. We are excited to hear that the COVID-19 vaccine is being provided to healthcare workers. However, it will be months before it is available to everyone. 

As we reflect on 2020 and all the hardships we have faced around the world, we want to express our solidarity and our support to those affected by the events of the past year. We cannot simply move on from these events, however, we can continue to try harder to make the world better in 2021. 

2020 Accomplishments

We lost much of our funding in 2020. Due to COVID-19, we had  an understandably sharp decline in donors. However, we continued our work at a smaller scale.

1. We continued to send out our last supply of care packages to lung transplant patients. 
2. We continued creating educational content online. 
3. We were able to increase our digital community outreach thanks to our team of marketers. 
4. We also applied for several grants this year as we planned. 
5. Finally, we began our virtual internship program this year thanks to Riipen. If you or any college student you know is interested in an internship with a nonprofit, please contact us at info@thesidfoundation.org. 

We are grateful to have been able to accomplish most of our goals for 2020 even if they were at a much smaller scale. Here is what we have planned for 2021...

2021 Goals

COVID-19 will continue to be a part of our world in 2021 so we have adjusted our goals to take that into account. We set these goals with a low budget in mind, however, if our funding increases, we will adjust the goals accordingly. 

1. Continue creating online educational content about lung health and lung transplants. 
2. Apply for more grants to increase revenue. 
3. Continue to increase our digital community outreach.
4. Based on the amount of donations we receive, we will restart our lung transplant patient care package program (it is currently on hold due to lack of funding). 
5. Based on funding, we will share stories of lung transplant patients and hold fundraisers to help them pay medical bills. 
6. Finally, we will continue our virtual internship program.

Despite the difficult times, we have hope that things will get better in the future and that we will be able to continue helping lung transplant patients beat the odds and thrive post transplantation. 


Thank you for supporting The Sid Foundation for all these years and for helping us keep Sid’s legacy alive.
We hope you all have better times and good health in the new year!


Click here to make a donation to The Sid Foundation. 
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You can now get face masks with the our logo or Lung Girl and Ecmo on it for only $14.95 plus shipping at our online store! All proceeds from these face masks will go towards our Lung Transplant Patient Support Program.

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Buy them here.

Most of us take breathing for granted until we or someone we know begins to suffer from COPD, asthma or another debilitating lung disease. In addition to long term breathing problems, many of these diseases can lead to a lung transplant. Maintaining good lung health is especially important during the COVID-19 pandemic. This virus attacks the lungs and causes severe breathing problems even after your recover from it.  
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Here are some activities that you can do to strengthen your lungs and decrease your chances of needing a transplant in the future.
These activities are listed according to fitness level. If you aren’t particularly athletic, start with the beginner level activities. If you are an athletic person, try them all!
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Beginner Fitness Level (Recommended for any age group):

1. Laughter Yoga- Laughter yoga combines breathing practices from traditional yoga with deep belly laughter. Deep belly laughter forces your lungs to expand more than they normally would and replaces the carbon dioxide that sits at the bottom of your lungs with oxygen. In between the laughter exercises, laughter yoga also incorporates deep breathing exercises causing you to take fewer, more effective, breaths overall. ​

4. Long Distance Running- Similar to biking, long distance running forces you to use your lungs to their maximum capacity for an extended period of time. This helps you get rid of all the carbon dioxide that sits at the bottom of your lungs and makes room for more oxygen. More oxygen in your lungs means more oxygen in your blood which results in better overall health. ​

5. High Intensity Cardio -HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training), sprints, and jump rope are examples of high intensity cardio. They include a regimen of short bursts of anaerobic exercises which leave you out of breath. They are an intense cardiovascular activity that force you to use your lungs to their maximum capacity. The more you use your lungs to their full capacity, the healthier they will be.

If you struggle with your lung capacity, try starting with beginner level exercises like laughter yoga and slowly advancing to the more difficult ones like biking around town or in nature. 

In 2019, we donated some of the funds we raised to the University of Kentucky Hospital Lung Transplant Program for the second time.

The 2019 donation was used in the following ways:

1.) Supported Research Project 1: "Extracorporeal Photopheresis for the Management of Progressive Bronchiolitis Obliterans Syndrome in Medicare-Eligible Recipients of Lung Allografts." 

2.) Supported Research Project 2: "A Phase III, Prospective, Multicenter, Randomized, Controlled Clinical Trial to Demonstrate the Effectiveness and Safety of Liposomal Cyclosporine A (L-CsA) Inhalation Solution Delivered via the PARI Investigational eFLOW Device plus Standard of Care versus Standard of Care Alone in the Treatment of Bronchiolitis Obliterans Syndrome in Patients post Double Lung Transplantation." 

3.) Supported Research Project 3: "A Phase 3, Multicenter Randomized Open label Active controlled Study to Assess the Efficacy and Safety of Maribavir Treatment Compared to Investigator assigned treatment in transplant recipients with Cytomegalovirus Infections."

4.) Helped lung transplant patients at the hospital pay for post transplantation medication.

We also donated 20 care packages to the hospital to distribute to their lung transplant patients. To learn more about what's in our care packages click here.
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Thank you so much to all our donors for making this possible. You are helping lung transplant patients beat the odds and thrive by supporting our organization. We could not have done this without you!
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To read a detailed report of all the research we supported through our donation, click on the PDF below: