If cancer has touched your life, then you know the struggles a person with cancer faces. Day to day life can be exhausting – going through treatments, endless doctor appointments – not to mention the many medications can all take a toll.
When that person is your child, you would do ANYTHING to help them beat the monster that has taken over their little body.
But for some parents, there is nothing they can do. Their child has a rare brain tumor called Diffused Intrinsic Pontine Glioma or DIPG. DIPG has no cure and is terminal upon diagnosis. They can’t even try and fight!
DIPG is considered rare by drug companies and that means it is not a priority for them to find a drug that provides HOPE to the kids who receive this diagnosis and desperately need a cure. It is up to us!
We at The Gold Hope Project are honored to offer free photography sessions to the families of children fighting cancer across the world, something we have done since the start of the organization. This is a priceless gift to the families in so many ways. Your donations to The Gold Hope Project are not only funding photography sessions for fighters, but also important research in the fight against DIPG through the DIPG Collaborative. By joining forces with the DIPG collaborative to help fund over $500,000 in promising research grants. It is our hope that one of these grants will lead to a CURE for DIPG and with your help we can make even bigger strides in the fight against this terminal pediatric brain tumor.
Tomorrow, as people around the world support important causes for #GivingTuesday, donate to The Gold Hope Project or start a fundraiser to help fund better cancer treatments and possibly a cancer cure!
You know the phrase “four-letter word” to mean cuss words, curses and dirty words. For parents though, perhaps the dirtiest word is actually a six-letter word: cancer.
As an adult, you probably already understand the general nuances of the cancer world; the medical phrases like clinical trials and chemo protocols, the scary symptoms like unexplained fevers and bruising, and the side effects of chemotherapy and radiation. As a general rule of thumb, most adults seem to innately understand these things about cancer. Imagine my surprise when I started reading about retinoblastoma and I found that I needed a biology course simply to understand what it is, beyond just a cancer in the eye. One would think that cancer is enough of a sick joke in and of itself, but to have cancer in the eye? Killer cells multiplying inside the part of your eye that detects light? The thought sickens me. I cannot imagine how the kids diagnosed with this cancer view the world, figuratively and literally. You know what gets me, really gets me, is that cancer is just a bunch of cells that begin to grow out of control, seemingly out of nowhere and for very little, if any, reason. In the same way a group of cells can grow into a beautiful, healthy baby, a group of cells can grow into a nasty cancer.
What is Retinoblastoma?
Retinoblastoma is a cancer of the retina, which is the thin membrane on the inside back of the eye. Retinas have cells called retinoblasts. In healthy children, these cells fill the retina as they divide themselves into new cells. At a certain point, they stop dividing and mature into our light-detecting retinal cells. In rare cases, these cells continue to divide and do not mature; instead, they begin to grow out of control and form the most common type of eye cancer in children – retinoblastoma. This comprises 3% of all childhood cancers, with an average of 275 kids diagnosed in the US each year. Retinoblastoma is diagnosed very early in life, usually before age 3 and can be both hereditary and nonhereditary.
Hereditary retinoblastoma is also known as germline retinoblastoma. Just shy of half of all retinoblastoma patients are diagnosed with this form. These kids are found to have a genetic defect that causes multiple tumors in one or both eyes and can be passed on in families. Germline retinoblastoma increases the odds that other cancers will develop inside or outside the eye, and carries a higher risk of other cancers later in life. Germline retinoblastoma is usually diagnosed by age 1.
Ben was diagnosed at 7.5 weeks with bilateral retinoblastoma. He is currently 6 months and still undergoing treatment. We are hopeful his prognosis of surviving is very good, with the cancer contained in his retina(s) thus far. But, he does have the hereditary form, which means he carries the germ line mutation in all of the cells in his body and is at a higher risk of cancer in his future. He will only have peripheral vision in his right eye (hopefully will have this), and he will have some obstructed vision in his left eye.
On the contrary, nonhereditary retinoblastoma does not come with the increased risk of other cancers, and usually forms in only one eye and is generally diagnosed by the age of 2. This type is slightly more prevalent.
Although cancer is such a dirty word, we are fortunate that modern medical advances have propelled the survival rate of this type of pediatric cancer to between 70% when both eyes are affected and 95% when only one eye is affected. Those are some pretty good odds!
Common Symptoms of Retinoblastoma
Often, retinoblastoma may fail to show symptoms. What kind of world is this when your child has cancer but has no symptoms? Luckily, medical and scientific advances today have added standard tests to pediatric check ups in order to screen for abnormalities or signs of the disease. It’s important to note that some symptoms are less noticeable and doctors may rely on the parent to advocate for anything that seems “off” about their child.
Common symptoms of retinoblastoma include:
“Cat’s eye” (also called the white pupillary reflex or leukokoria), is a white-yellow orb-like spot seen through the pupil. Many times, this symptom is first noticed in photographs, especially when the flash is used. In children with retinoblastoma, what would normally appear as red-eye from a flash appears whitish instead. Learn more here.
Poor vision issues
The presence of strabismus, when one or both of the eyes turn inward or outward (often called “lazy eye”)
Pain or discomfort in the eye, pressure as the tumor grows
If left untreated, retinoblastoma can spread widely throughout the retina, the tissue beneath the retina, and the fluid in the eye, called vitreous. Large tumors can detach from the retina and break into small tumors. These are aptly named “vitreous seeds”. Floating in the vitreous, these seeds are very difficult to treat. These tumors are also adept at spreading into the optic nerve, brain, bones and bone marrow.
At Evelyn’s 12 month doctor appointment, the day after her 1st birthday, the vision machine couldn’t get a reading. Then the pediatrician tried to shine a light in her eye but kept repeating it for a few times. She then said something looked off, and asked us to go see an ophthalmologist. They informed us that she has retinoblastoma. We had no symptoms, which made this a complete shock and surprise for us.
Retinoblastoma Treatment
Before retinoblastoma, or any cancer, can be treated, it must be diagnosed in order to plan the most effective treatment. CTs, bone scans, MRIs, ultrasounds, and xrays are all effective methods in the diagnosing of retinoblastoma as well as determining placement, size, and severity of the cancer. Biopsy is normally an integral part of the cancer diagnosis and treatment, but with eye cancers, a biopsy just can’t be done without risking the health of the rest of the eye and the spread of the cancer to the surrounding tissues. Fortunately, experienced doctors can identify retinoblastoma without a biopsy.
Like most pediatric cancers, treatment of retinoblastoma depends on many different factors and there isn’t one simple protocol. Each patient is different and requires the close attention of an ocular oncologist or ophthalmologist to determine what plan is best. The common factors to determine the course of treatment for retinoblastoma are:
Whether the presence of the tumor in one or both eyes
Whether the center of vision is affected
Whether the tumor has spread to other parts of the body (metastasis)
Treatment for retinoblastoma can include surgery, chemo and/or focal therapy, and radiation therapy.
Generally, surgery is used in advanced cases in order to completely remove the cancerous eye, also known as enucleation. This treatment, as scary as it sounds, has a pretty good prognosis in patients with only one eye affected. In most cases, when the cancerous eye is removed, 90% of these children do not require any other treatment as the cancer was removed with the eye. In patients with both eyes affected, the eye with the larger amount of the tumor is removed and then treatment is focused on the remaining diseased eye.
Chemotherapy, as we all know, is a powerful medicine used to stop cancerous cell growth and inhibit the reproduction of more. In the best-case scenario, it’s used to completely kill the cancerous cells. In many cases, the chemo is injected into the bloodstream to allow it to travel to all areas of the body, in essence to kill any cancerous cells in the body. In some cases, the chemo can be injected directly around the eye for local treatment (called periocular, which translates accordingly as “around the eye”).
Charlotte has been through chemotherapy and enucleation of right eye. She is now blind in her right eye. Cancer has changed so much!
Advances
Fortunately, medical advances have allowed for all the fighting power of multiple chemos as once, called combination therapy. While this type of chemo treatment boosts the eradication of the tumor, chemo alone has not been found to cure retinoblastoma. Patients today are also given focal therapy, a focused laser treatment designed to fight the cancerous cells while minimizing any side effects to surrounding tissues. Cryotherapy, a type of laser treatment using freezing power, may also be used as focal therapy. In some cases, focal therapy continues after a chemo protocol is complete and, if the tumors are small enough, only focal therapy may be used successfully to kill the cancer.
Another way to target the specific cancer cells is photocoagulation. This relatively new science uses lasers to kill either the small tumors or the blood vessels that feed the tumors, thus resulting in starving them off and disabling their growth.
If left untreated or in advanced cases, retinoblastoma can invade the brain or spread to lymph nodes or the bones or bone marrow. When this is the case, children may require a stem cell transplant to reintroduce healthy white blood cells to the body. Stem cell transplants replace the chemo-stricken blood-forming cells in the marrow with donor cells that have never been treated with either chemo or radiation. This gives the patient new, healthy, immature blood cells that with grow into healthy cells, thus rebuilding a healthy system. Some stem cell transplants are called bone marrow transplants because the cells come straight from marrow.
Take Action
It’s so very difficult to come up with something one person can do to help eradicate cancer of any kind. Sadly, science today is still not advanced enough to inoculate against or prevent retinoblastoma to any degree, but the one constant need for nearly every type of cancer is blood donation and/or bone marrow donation. The Red Cross is a great resource when searching for a blood drive near you and Be The Match, the bone marrow registry website, has all the information necessary to make the decision to selflessly give HOPE to a cancer fighter.
Cancer has profoundly affected our individual and family lives. A significant aftereffect of cancer has been anxiety.We are anxious people now. This is something we will always deal with. All that being said, I am grateful for the cancer experience. We have been surrounded by amazing people…those who walk the journey with us and those who have supported us in the journey. We appreciate every moment we are given in life.
Imagine being told not only that your child has cancer, but also that the cancer he has is considered the deadliest childhood brain cancer. There is nothing in modern medical science to cure them. Nothing. Every single attempt to save the life of your baby is thwarted by the aggressive nature of the #1 cause of pediatric cancer death – Diffused Intrinsic Pontine Glioma or DIPG.
Charlie, diagnosed with DIPG.
WHAT IS DIPG?
DIPG is a nasty tumor found in the brain stem, specifically the area of the brain at the top and back of the neck, connected to the spinal cord. This tumor grows quickly and invades the healthy brain tissue, weaving itself so thoroughly that removing it is impossible. The aggressive nature of this tumor defies the “normal” science of what a tumor is; a mass of cancerous tissues with defined edges.
DIPG, on the other hand, has soft, non-uniform edges and intertwines itself among healthy brain cells. In essence growing into its own defense mechanism and preventing surgical removal. No surgeon wants to dig through healthy brain tissue, especially on the brain stem. The brain stem controls things like breathing, heart rate and the nerves and muscles that assist in seeing, hearing, walking, talking and eating. Just to give you an idea of how scary the location of these tumors are.
Like all cancerous tumors, it’s terrifying to find out that your child has a tumor in her brain. But also, this one is the worst of the worst: not only completely inoperable, but completely incurable. While DIPG is rare, around 300 children a year are diagnosed with this cancer, it is the most common brain cancer death in children.
COMMON SYMPTOMS
As a mom of a child who battled cancer in her brain, I can tell you without a doubt there are no symptoms out there that compare to the terror of brain stem tumor symptoms:
Headaches primarily in the morning or headaches gone after vomiting
Weakness in facial muscles, drooping, mostly on one side
Angel’s his eyes turned inward, he couldn’t speak, and he lost his ability to walk before being diagnosed with DIPG.
Unlike some childhood tumors, DIPG is fast growing and some symptoms may seem to pop up overnight. This is due to the tumor becoming large enough to put pressure on certain areas of the brain stem.
TREATMENT
There is no treatment for DIPG currently. This diagnosis is a heartbreaking death sentence. With the advances made in cancer research in recent years, there is hope that someday soon there will be an effective treatment for DIPG, but right now all doctors and patients can do is experiment. All of the treatment efforts made in the past have resulted only in buying a little bit of time instead of a cure.
Because of the destructive growth and uncommon shape of this tumor, operating on it for biopsy or removal is rare here in the United States. Doctors generally sidestep the practice because the results of the biopsy rarely have an effect on the type or the success of the treatment. The side effects and general risks of operating on any area of the brain tend to outweigh the good.
In Europe, however, advances in technology have garnered a new way to biopsy, called a “stereotactic” biopsy. This combines the sciences of MRI and CAT scans of the brain and tumor with a long, thin needle. Using the scans as a map, the needle is guided into the tumor to extract cells while avoiding critical nerves in the brain. This keeps the risk of damage to the healthy brain tissue lower than a normal biopsy.
Ava’s treatment of DIPG consisted of radiation with an experimental chemo treatment. Though her initial tumor responded well to treatment, more tumors were found in other areas of her body. Ava passed away in November of 2012 after an 11-month battle.
Radiation seems to be the only treatment that comes close to helping, though it in no way resembles a cure. Kids diagnosed with DIPG usually only get a few months – 5 is the median, and radiation therapy can give them as many as three extra months. Can you imagine? Eight months with your baby until the unthinkable happens and no way to cure the disease.
HOPE
Sadly, up until now chemotherapy has had almost zero effect on these gliomas. A study completed by Northwestern University does, however, show some promise on the future of chemo and DIPG. Essentially, mice with gliomas have shown great improvement when treated with a new chemotherapy drug using BET inhibitors. Because of this finding, a clinical trial is currently in the first phases for adults. Northwestern is hoping to open up a clinical trial for children by the end of 2017. This seems to be the only shred of good news concerning DIPG.
While researchers and doctors today have a basic understanding of a few of the genetic mutations causing DIPG, there is a lot of information researchers aren’t privy to. The lack of tissue samples of the tumor, a direct result of the general lack of the practice of biopsy stalls research. Parents of children diagnosed with DIPG can request that a sample of their child’s tumor tissue be donated for research. The more tissue samples we have of this monster, the more information we can learn and better hone the healing procedure to one day have a cure for these little fighters.
TAKE ACTION
Here at The Gold Hope Project, we are striving to raise money for awareness and research of this monstrous malignancy. The DIPG Collaborative is a group of 30 amazing organizations that have come together to facilitate DIPG cancer research and grants. Through this collaborative, we know we can make a huge difference in the understanding of this cancer and, more importantly, the CURE of this cancer. Donations are so needed and so appreciated in the world of sick children. Please visit our donation page to help us help the kids battling DIPG. The value of your donation is life!
Childhood Leukemia. One of many words you don’t want to hear out of a doctor’s mouth, especially following, “Your child has.” About 5,400 families every year are swept up in the turmoil that is leukemia. While a diagnosis of leukemia is terrifying and tumultuous at best, the term “leukemia” is no longer the death sentence it once was. Just 60 years ago the survival rate for leukemia, the most common form of cancer in children, went from having a 3% survival rate to over a 92% survival rate.
It may surprise you to know that there isn’t just one pediatric leukemia. There are actually four types, with two of them being the most common: acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL), which makes up about ¾ of the childhood cases of leukemia and acute myeloid leukemia (AML), which comprises nearly all of the other cases of childhood leukemia.
Children diagnosed with either of these today have a long, rough road ahead of them but a positive prognosis with an 80% five-year survival rate for ALL and 60%-70% five-year survival rate for AML.
Henry, diagnosed with ALL.
WHAT IS CHILDHOOD LEUKEMIA?
Leukemia is a cancer of the blood and bone marrow. Both ALL and AML begin when the bone marrow creates and accumulates too many immature blood cells. These extra cells turn into cancerous cells, replace the healthy cells, and are carried throughout the body in the bloodstream, causing the myriad symptoms leukemia often presents with.
Specifically in ALL, the cells that become cancerous are the cells that prevent germs from invading the bloodstream and tell the body’s immune system to kick in. These are called lymphocytes. In AML, the cells that become cancerous are the cells that destroy bacteria and digest diseased cells, called myeloid cells.
There are two other forms of leukemia: chronic lymphoblastic leukemia (CLL) and chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). Just a glance at the names allows one to see the resemblance to their sister cancers, but unlike their acute counterparts, the term “chronic” means slowly progressing. While ALL and AML begin with immature cells, CLL and CML begin when the marrow produces too many mature cells. Fortunately, these chronic subtypes are very rare in childhood.
COMMON SYMPTOMS
Generally speaking, the symptoms of leukemia could be normal symptoms of many things far less scary than cancer. Just because a child presents with one or two of these does not mean they have cancer. A few of the following symptoms are the same symptoms as the common flu. That being said, these symptoms must be brought up to your pediatrician, especially if the flu-like symptoms have remained longer than a normal bout of the flu.
Leading up to Shephard’s ALL diagnosis, he had a swollen knee and fever that couldn’t be controlled with medication. He was also very lethargic.
ALL and AML share most symptoms. With ALL, the following symptoms are causes for concern:
Fever
Easy bruising and/or bleeding
Rash-looking pin point red dots called petechiae beneath the skin
Bone and/or joint pain
Lumps in neck, underarm, stomach or groin areas or lymph node locations
Discomfort, pain or feeling full beneath rib cage
Pale skin
Weakness
Lethargy
Loss of appetite
AML presents with some of the same symptoms:
Fever
Lethargy
Loss of appetite
And some different ones:
Night sweats
Weight loss
Ariana was constantly sick with several urgent care visits for over a month before her diagnosis. Her illnesses ranged from sinus issues, upper respiratory problems, ear infections and pneumonia.
All in all, when in doubt, a doctor visit is in order. These cancers are curable, but like their names imply, fast-moving.
Road to a Cure
With any illness, there is a trial and error period of medicines, tests and therapies before doctors finally get it right and have some amount of success; oftentimes, this trial and error period is continual, always searching for something better. Leukemia treatment is no exception. Trial and error was definitely the catalyst in finding the cure and continues today with research.
As recently as the early 1960s, leukemia patients always succumbed to their illness. ALWAYS. This is because of the fast growing rate of disease and infections related to the disease. Fast-forward less than half a century and we have an uplifting leukemia history lesson in 10 words or less: what was once a death sentence is now curable!
In the late 1940s doctors and specialists treated leukemia with a folic acid inhibitor, allowing patients a temporary remission. With this promise of some remission, the drug paved the path of chemotherapy for treatment of leukemia. Unfortunately, all patients eventually succumbed to the recurrence of their cancers.
By the 1950s, advances were being made with the combination therapy of corticosteroids and a drug called 6-MP, which was designed to kill rapidly growing cells like acute leukemic cells. This gave patients an improvement in quality of life while battling the disease and lengthened their life span, a promising outlook now on the horizon. Sadly, patients treated with this protocol still ended up dying from their disease as the leukemia developed a resistance to the drugs used to fight it and returned in other areas of the body.
In the 1960s, clinical trials focused on treating the recurrent cancers that fought off the treatments. Eventually, about half of the patients were cured of their cancers! By 1971, what was once deemed an impossibility became an amazing reality – doctors announced that leukemia could be cured. In 30 years of medical trials and scientific approaches, human beings cured cancer. A humbling experience that I can only imagine.
Since then, advancements have propelled the cure rate to 60% – sometimes greater than 90%. Some amazing advancements include cleaner and safer blood transfusions; refined chemotherapy protocols; bone marrow transplants from unrelated donors; and a special type of radiation called total body irradiation, a procedure to radiate the cancer cells in marrow pre-transplant, allowing the transplant better odds with a cleaner, less disease-ridden base of marrow.
The treatment of leukemia began in a time when blood was stored in glass milk bottles with paper cup caps and delivered to patients through a mesh-stuffed funnel. How far we’ve come in 70 years! These advancements are nothing short of medical miracles.
Treatment
Today, the standard treatment plan is similar for both types of acute leukemias. Most doctors place on their patients with ALL a three-stage process of treatment. For patients with the myeloid type (AML), normally only the first two stages are necessary.
Lucas’ treatment lasted 3 years and 3 months. He has been off treatment for 2 years and doing great!
Stage One: Remission Induction
The purpose of this stage is to kill the majority of the cancerous cells found in blood and/or bone marrow. This stage uses intense chemo protocols and most of the time requires long hospital stays. Because of the depletion of healthy cells also, this stage will usually require blood transfusions to infuse healthy blood cells back into the body. The majority of patients enter remission in this stage!
Stage Two: Consolidation
Another intense round of chemo kills any remaining cancer cells.
Stage Three: Maintenance/Continued Therapy
Kills the final remaining cancer cells and prevents relapse.
Bone marrow and stem cell transplants are offered if the leukemia doesn’t respond to standard treatment or comes back after remission. During a bone marrow transplant, bone marrow cells can be taken from the patient prior to treatment or from a donor in the hopes of creating a new “blood factory”, producing healthy white blood cells. Stem cell transplants are similar, introducing healthy blood stem cells to the patient for the same purpose. These stem cells can also come from the patient prior to treatment or from newborn cord blood donations.
Radiation therapy is offered if the cancer has spread to the brain or to the central nervous system or is likely to spread there. Strong radiation beams are aimed precisely at the target locations, killing the diseased cells.
TAKE ACTION
Any help offer to a family going through a child’s cancer diagnosis will always be appreciated, but there are two big ways to help give the biggest impact: blood donation and bone marrow donation.
Leukemia patients routinely need donated blood when they have low counts or they have a reduction of healthy blood cells. The American Red Cross blood drives are popular and easy ways to give blood. Giving blood is a very safe, relatively quick, and pretty painless procedure. Visiting the Red Cross website will give you all the facts you need before donating.
Bone marrow donation is a little more involved, but the good is does is by far more important! Joining the registry is easy! All it takes is a simple cheek swab. If donating bone marrow sounds like something you’d love to do for kids battling leukemia, visit the bone marrow registry at https://www.bethematch.org to learn more about saving lives with your generous donation.
If donating isn’t possible or you want to help even more, just giving your time to the family can make a huge difference for them. Offer a break during a lengthy hospital stay by sitting with their child while they get a much-needed reprieve from all things illness, send them a meal, make a care basket, or simply call. Find more ways to help here.
Hope
Let me leave you with a uplifting story of a child fighting the fight of her life against leukemia and winning, thanks to a selfless gift from a stranger:
“Olivia was 19 months old when she was diagnosed with very high risk T-Cell ALL. Her disease did not respond to standard treatment and it was determined that she would require a bone marrow transplant in order to have any hope for survival. Thanks to an anonymous donor, she received her second chance at life, just a few days after her second birthday. She has now been in remission for over three years and has been living a very normal and happy life. We were lucky enough to be able to meet her wonderful donor this past December and thank him personally. Although Olivia will be followed by a rather large team of medical specialists for the rest of her life, we are beyond grateful that she is still here with us today. We are also very thankful for organizations like The Gold Hope Project, that help us to document her life. These are truly priceless gifts for our family.”
Olivia, ALL survivor.
Thanks to medical advances, big-hearted blood and marrow donors and generous donations to children’s cancer research, leukemia is still a dirty word, but now one capable of being washed away.
Being a first time mom, I worried about a lot of things and wondered if every little cold was something more serious. Though one thing I never worried about was my daughter getting cancer. That was something that happened to children in far away make believe places. But that worry smacked me in the face when the life I knew shattered with the words “It’s a brain tumor.”
We visited the doctor that day because I thought Ava, my four year old daughter, had an ear infection but that turned into the worst cancer diagnosis a child can have, diffused intrinsic pontine glioma or DIPG. I remember the doctor who told us about DIPG said not to google it. I know now that is because the facts are grim and depressing.
– There is no treatment that will cure DIPG.
– No child has ever survived this diagnosis.
– Children with DIPG live on average, 9-12 months after diagnosis.
– DIPG causes them to lose all motor functions like walking, speaking and swallowing; all while the child is aware what is happening to their failing body.
After facing these depressing facts, my whole family was beyond devastated. How do we instill hope in our child that she will beat this monster if no one before her ever has?
Ava always found a way to smilie through her treatments. She wanted to fight the monster in her brain.
We decided we would fight as best we could. We enrolled her in a clinical trial and fought alongside her for 11 months. We wanted to make it all better for her but because of lack of research, sadly there was nothing we could do. She grew weaker and weaker while the cancer overtook her small body.
Ava passed away when she was only five years old. Since her death, I have watched more children die of this horrific brain cancer and with each child’s death, I grow angry. Angry that this cancer might have a cure if only researchers had the funding. Angry that people aren’t aware of this beast that is robbing families of a life with their child. Angry that they too cannot save their tiny little fighter.
That anger is what fuels me in continuing to fight for Ava and the 200 or more children that will receive the same diagnosis this year. One child dying from DIPG is too many. They need a cure! Are you angry too?
Please help us fund this much needed research TODAY, so there might be a cure TOMORROW. Make a donation to The Gold Hope Project research fund here.
Thank you in advance for your support!
Fighting until we find a cure,
Cynthia Dawson
Co-Founder and President of The Gold Hope Project
Another magical holiday season is fast approaching, and we couldn’t be more excited to invite you to ring in the giving season with us on the global day of giving, #GivingTuesday! By joining this movement, you will help build on our goal to provide a research grant for pediatric brain cancer, AND provide a beautiful lasting memory of a moment in a pediatric cancer patient’s life that needs to be forever remembered.
It has long been a goal for The Gold Hope Project to not only bring awareness to childhood cancer, but to also have a hand in ground breaking research. While there are 12 different types of childhood cancer, all of which have different treatment protocols and outcomes, the federal government only reserves 4% of The National Cancer Institute’s budget to research the number one killer of children by disease.
If you have been thrust into the world of childhood cancer, you know all too well how easily our kids are forgotten by big pharmaceutical companies because their disease doesn’t make them money. This means our children and those that love them are left to wonder – who will fight for a cure for these smallest of heroes?
With you, our fellow believer in HOPE, we will be joining monetary forces with over 30 other pediatric cancer non profits to fund life saving and innovative research specifically for pediatric brain cancer. Your monetary donation to The Gold Hope Project makes as big an impact as the photographers who volunteer to provide these services to many deserving families. We are happy to be able to provide research grants for innovative new cancer treatments that we are certain will one day lead to a CURE!
Mark your calendars for the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, spread the word, and get involved today!
Another magical holiday season is fast approaching, and we couldn’t be more excited to invite you to ring in the giving season with us on the global day of giving,