Patients receiving treatment for advanced heart failure in Pittsburgh can receive help from the Joe Beretta Foundation, a nonprofit dedicating to supporting patients and their families.

The nonprofit is named for Joe Beretta, who died in the summer of 2016 after battling advanced heart failure. His wife, Lillian, and their family launched a nonprofit to provide support, temporary housing and short-term financial assistance to other families struggling with the same health complications and associated treatments.

The nonprofit launched in Mt. Juliet, Tenn., a community near Vanderbilt University Hospital, where Beretta received treatment. Beretta was a resident of Tennessee, but his wife grew up in Pittsburgh.

Gloria Andreozzi, an executive board member and Lillian’s cousin, helped launch a Pittsburgh branch of the nonprofit, first meeting with UPMC to discuss the concept in 2018. The Joe Beretta Foundation now serves patients at UPMC and Allegheny Health Network. In total, the foundation services five hospitals between Pittsburgh and the Nashville area.

Andreozzi, of Bradford Woods, has since visited about 300 families dealing with advanced heart failure, and is one of about 10 to 15 volunteers working with the organization in the Pittsburgh region.

“We are growing, and we do have other cities that are interested,” Andreozzi said.

The Joe Beretta Foundation in Pittsburgh teamed up with the Family House to provide housing for patients who need to travel to Pittsburgh’s hospitals for treatment, she said. Though about 6.2 million adults in the United States have heart failure, only about 4 percent of hospitals can treat it — meaning that many patients and their families are forced to travel and find accommodations in a city like Pittsburgh while receiving treatment.

Volunteers also visit patients in the hospital, provide gifts for those spending holidays in the hospital, offer short-term financial support and teach people how to prepare healthy menus for patients when they return home.

“It just brings a smile to their face, that someone cares,” Andreozzi said.

The nonprofit recently announced that a $10,000 grant from the Pittsburgh Foundation will fund a program called Papa Joe’s Plates, which will provide five to seven days worth of pre-prepared healthy meals for patients and their families after they’re discharged from the hospital.

“I don’t think there’s anything else like it in our region,” said Susan Orr, who was recently named to the Joe Beretta Foundation Advisory Board.

She’s been volunteering with the nonprofit since she learned about the group in the midst of the covid-19 pandemic, when she helped the group pivot an event to a virtual format. Since then, she said, she’s been inspired “by their great mission of meeting practical needs of advanced heart failure patients and their families.”

Orr never got to meet her grandmother, who died from advanced heart failure. That’s part of what inspires her to donate her time to the organization, Orr said.

“There’s such a need for people who are in the hospital and their families to know that there are other people out there who care and who want to support them,” Orr said. “To have this group of people who are there on a voluntary basis, who are there to support you in so many different ways, I’m sure it’s a huge relief for families — having the support system they didn’t even know they would have.”

The nonprofit is always looking for new volunteers and donors, Andreozzi said. More information is available from Andreozzi at 412-400-9081 or through her email, gloriaa@tjbf.org. Additional information is available on the organization’s website, https://www.thejoeberettafoundation.com.

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