Childhood Cancer Awareness Month

September is National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. As many of you know, the summer and fall after Carson was born, I helped a student with cancer finish his math credits. While tutoring William, I got to know a family with a little girl who also had cancer. Catie passed away a few days after Macie was born (and a week before her sister was born). I am posting an email I got from Catie's mom. Please consider making a donation to this vastly under funded cause.


Hey there,

Most of you know that our sweet girl, Catie, was diagnosed with cancer on her first birthday and fought hard for nearly 3 1/2 years before earning her much deserved rest. Never did we dream that our lives would be touched by childhood cancer, and we certainly never imagined we would lose a child. Yet here we are, normal folks, just like you, in just that boat.

Throughout the month of September, we are participating in an initiative called “CURE’s Kids Conquer Cancer One Day at a Time.” On September 26, what would have been her 7th birthday, Catie will be honored. CURE Childhood Cancer will feature her story on its web site (www.curechildhoodcancer.org), its blog (www.curechildhoodcancerblog.wordpress.com, and on www.firstgiving.com/curekidcatiewilkins. Our goal through the Firstgiving website is to raise well over $1,000 on Catie’s day to help fund research that will lead to better treatments and cures for pediatric cancers. We want more survivors, and research (and therefore it's funding) is the way to get there. Our goal is for less families to have to say, "Goodbye," to their kids.

Did you know September is Childhood Cancer Awareness month? If you didn’t, you’re not alone. Many people do not know what the month signifies. Yet every day, two full classrooms of kids are diagnosed with cancer. And still, only 2% of federal funding for cancer research is directed at solving cancers that impact our children. The frontline drugs Catie received to attack her tumor were the same drugs used 20 years earlier. This is unacceptable. Research, and therefore funding for it, is vital to improve the chances of children fighting cancer.

While doctors and researchers have made strides in the battle against so many other types of cancer, the lack of funding and awareness for our children has led to an insignificant improvement in survival rates for pediatric cancer over the past decade. As a result, cancer continues to be the number one disease killer of children in our country, more than asthma, diabetes, cystic fibrosis and pediatric AIDS combined! So how does childhood cancer become a priority cause in this country? The journey begins with each of us. We need your help to raise more funds and more awareness.

If you are willing and able, please go to www.firstgiving.com/curekidcatiewilkins
and make a donation in Catie's memory. She was an amazing little girl who changed our lives forever. We will forever be challenged to live full like she did, no matter what we face and no matter how much we miss her. We hope you will help and share Catie's story with your friends and family on September 26, and ask them to join you in donating in her memory. Together, we can make curing childhood cancer as urgently important as it should be and reach a CURE in our lifetime.

Thanks so very much,
Tre', Jenny, Izzy, and Chip (and really, Catie too!)www.midgetsandmoonpies.blogspot.com