Category: Volunteer & Donate

Facts about childhood cancer

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Did you know the following facts about childhood cancer? See the infographics here, or read below.

    • Childhood cancer is the number one disease killer of children in the U.S. It’s the second leading cause of death (following accidents) in children ages 5-14.
    • Every two minutes a child is diagnosed with cancer. That’s 300,000 kids around the world every year. Learn more about this new statistic.
    • While the survival rates have improved significantly since 1960s, still, one in five children diagnosed with cancer in the U.S. will not survive. For the ones who do, the battle is never over.
    • Long term effects. Because of the treatments they had as kids, by the time they’re in their 30s or 40s, more than 95% of childhood cancer survivors will have a chronic health problem and 80% will have severe or life- threatening conditions.
    • Grossly limited funding. Only 4% of federal government cancer research funding goes to children.
    • Not enough advances in research or treatment. Since 1980, fewer than 10 drugs have been developed for use in children with cancer. For many of the childhood cancers, the same treatments that existed in the 1970’s continue with few, if any, changes.
    • Expensive treatment. The average cost of a stay in a hospital for a child with cancer is $40,000 per stay.  On average, pediatric hospitalizations for cancer cost almost five times as much as hospitalizations for other pediatric conditions.

Source: St Baldrick’s Foundation, Coalition against Childhood Cancer

Please consider helping in any way you can! The posts here offer some examples of ways to give (volunteer / donate). 

Our Summer 2017 Fundraiser

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Update: Thanks to everyone’s generous contributions, we managed to raise over $9K this summer (around $15k after gift match) to benefit to St Jude Children’s Research Hospital. THANK YOU for coming together as a community to help support the good cause!

You don’t have to be rich or famous to help. You don’t even have to be a grown up. You just need a kind and determined heart. At least, that’s what two six year olds taught us last year… Around Thanksgiving 2016, when our kid was struggling with her intense cancer treatment, she and her friend came up with an idea of a funding campaign to help kids that are sick. They wanted to have a lemonade stand (we hadn’t heard of Alex’s Lemonade stand then).

I must confess our initial reaction was one of skepticism — after all, what could a six year old kid do to help beat such a dreadful disease? But the girls were so sincere in their idea of a funding campaign that we decided to play along.

Still, lemonade in winter? You’ve got to be kidding! We tried talking the girls into considering something a bit more sane. Their next idea was to sell artwork to raise funds to help kids that are sick. With a cold and rainy winter season, artwork sounded way more reasonable, so we agreed to help them with their plan (thinking they would forget soon).

Much to our surprise, in the following months of hospitalizations and chemotherapy, our kid generated piles of artwork (over 50!). It was our turn to do something to help. After some failed attempts at selling the artwork (the logistics of an art exhibition etc were too complex, especially since she was still in intense frontline treatment), we thought why not convert her artwork into a storybook? We self published a fun and adventure book for children, and created an online fundraiser to help the kids with their efforts (the least we could do!).

Now, we ‘ld like to invite you and your friends to join these six year olds in their efforts to help other kids fighting cancer. Click below to donate now. For tax deduction and employee gift match, please donate directly at http://stjude.org/donate and send the email receipt to bravekidsfightcancer(at)gmail(dot)com. We will consider it as a donation towards the above cause.

 

See Apu’s CampaignPowered by Fundly

Volunteering event: Visit to the pediatric unit at a hospital

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Ever considered volunteering at a nearby children’s hospital or clinic for a couple of hours? You could read a book, or play music, or entertain kids with jokes or a fun costume, or play a game with them (and these are just a few options!). Try it and you’ll discover how refreshingly different and meaningful the experience can be…

We tried this recently and found every moment of the volunteering experience to be worthwhile! As part of a volunteering event at workplace, we organized a trip to the pediatric unit at a nearby hospital (Kaiser, Santa Clara). A team of eight enthusiastic volunteers (including a Juggler, one dressed as a squirrel and another as Stitch from Lilo & Stitch) distributed fun and educational gifts to 15-20 kids from all age groups.

Laughter being the best medicine, we included joke books, emoji keychains (attach to the backpack or IV pole!) and emoji tattoos as gifts. We gave comfort toy blankets and storybook pillows to infants and toddlers; fun activity books, art and educational gifts for different age groups (including Google cardboard virtual reality for older kids, to keep them really busy). We also gave our children’s book on “How Sunshine Returned to Joyland” to the kids and nurses. Overall, it was a day well spent — a definite positive experience. Will plan more such in future 🙂

Volunteering and Donations

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Here are some facts about childhood cancer. Want to make a difference? There are many ways to help. You could volunteer at one of the cancer hospitals, or for the several non-profit organizations that are committed to helping end cancer. Below are a few examples in the Bay area.

Please do consider making a donation to any of these organizations or others of your choice. Your donations are tax deductible!

  • Donate to St. Jude Children’s Research hospital. Families never receive a bill for treatment, travel, housing or food.
  • Donate to Leukemia, Lymphoma Society. LLS is the largest voluntary health organization dedicated to funding research, finding cures and ensuring access to treatments for blood cancer patients.
  • Donate to Camp Okizu and help them support all members of families affected by childhood cancer to heal through peer support, respite, mentoring, and recreational programs.
  • Donate to Kids & Art foundation and help them improve the well-being of children by healing through arts. They offer weekly art workshops at children’s hospitals in the Bay area and monthly workshops at various destinations.
  • Donate to Jacob’s Heart and help them support underprivileged families with grocery deliveries, transportation to hospital/clinic, basic financial assistance etc.