January 5, 2026

Meet Feli

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Season of Sharing Fund gave cancer patient two gifts: Housing help and a lesson about charity

Feli Mercado’s pixie cut hairstyle has straight bangs high on her forehead, the reddish strands no more than a fraction of an inch long — just long enough so that she no longer looks like a cancer patient.

She still feels like one.

Mercado gets tired sometimes, occasionally dizzy. Her body is still recovering from a double mastectomy and months of chemotherapy treatments, the last administered in July, to battle the breast cancer discovered in late 2024.

All that came after the phone call that will probably remain a fixture in Mercado’s mind. The physician’s voice on the other end with the biopsy results that followed an irregular mammogram. The words that ended life as she knew it: triple-negative, second-stage carcinoma.

The doctor asked whether she had any questions.

“No. I mean, are you sure?” she finally replied. The disembodied answer was yes.

Mercado hung up and fell to the floor. She implored fate to explain why cancer chose her. She hadn’t drunk or smoked. She had given up a lucrative career in finance to work two jobs in public service — by day as a resource specialist for pregnant and parenting teens in the Concord school district and by night as an adult education teacher.

“Receiving is also a strength, as well as giving.”

“It took me a week, after crying and yelling and questions, to say, ‘So, what’s my reality? OK. So I have cancer. What do I need to do?’” she said. “And that’s how everything started.”

Wanting some control over what was happening to her, she shaved her head before chemo took her hair, thanking her long, brown locks for keeping her warm and making her feel beautiful. And asking them to return someday.

But the surgery and months of treatment were brutal, Mercado said. She was single, living alone, relying on friends to help out when they could. As the months passed, the drugs that were supposed to help save her health felt like they were also destroying it.

Every morning she’d look in the mirror and tell herself she looked beautiful.

“Even though I looked like, well, you know,” she said.

She urged her body to fight, to be a symphony, with each part of her playing its role to make her well again. She knew she needed to fuel that effort with healthy food, she said, even though chemo left her with no appetite. Not only did that take willpower, but it also took financial resources, with fresh produce and balanced meals more expensive than off-the-shelf or fast food options.

By May, not only was her body drained, her bank account was worn down as well.

Cooking and shopping were not possible, but she didn’t want to rely on friends and neighbors to bring the fresh meals she could stomach.

She had to choose: Pay the mortgage or buy healthy and deliverable food.

Then she heard about the Season of Sharing Fund from a friend and applied through a caseworker. Season of Sharing works year-round to prevent homelessness and hunger in the Bay Area’s nine counties. All donations are spent helping people in need.

The ask was hard, Mercado said. She had always been the one helping, the strong person who was there for others in need, who volunteered at church, directed local plays and contributed to her community, including for the past 10 years in her career in public education.

The irony hit her like a gut punch when she realized that receiving is an act of humility that allows others to give.

“If seeing me brings compassion out in other people, then it’s my turn to just say, ‘Yes, help me,’” she said. “Receiving is also a strength, as well as giving.”

The fund approved her application, covering her May mortgage payment and allowing her to buy healthy food.

“That money gave me a little independence, of knowing that I could provide for myself,” she said. “It was for me not to worry about the meals anymore.”

But the money also gave her a chance to share her story so perhaps others will be inspired to seek out the Season of Sharing Fund, to give or ask for help.

“Something else beautiful is going to come out of this.”

Mercado will have checkups this month and for years into her future to make sure there are no more signs of cancer. That’s the future.

On this November day, it is the second time since she shaved her head that she is not wearing a hat or a head cover in public, Mercado said, a sign the chemo is relinquishing its grip on her, a feeling that she can see herself in the mirror again.

She has been back at her two jobs for several months now, her office decorated with a pink and purple keyboard and butterflies scattered around the walls, an homage to her love of the butterfly effect, the idea that one small act can have ripple effects far beyond what we can see.

Mercado said she sees that in the money she got from the Season of Sharing Fund.

“I’m grateful, and they saved me, you know,” she said of the fund. “It’s accepting that maybe something else, something else beautiful is going to come out of this.”

Reach Jill Tucker: jtucker@sfchronicle.com

WAYS TO HELP

Neighbors Help Neighbors

At Season of Sharing Fund, we believe that an unexpected financial crisis should never mean losing your home. Preventing homelessness isn’t just kind—it’s also the most effective way to keep our communities thriving. 100% of your donation keeps Bay Area residents housed, cared for and nourished.

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