3rd edition: “How Sunshine Returned to Joyland”
See this page for the latest on our interactive edition of the children’s book with activities, rhymes and artwork to help children cheer up and stay positive amidst challenges.
Tag: charity
An evening of wishes
Make a wish foundation grants life-changing wishes for children with critical illnesses. When a wish comes true, it creates strength, hope and transformation.
We had a great time at the evening of wishes gala! Our kid’s wish was to write a children’s book. Make a wish helped her work with a real children’s book author, Shirin Bridges. Kiddo also met and interviewed Annie Barrows, the famous author of Ivy and Bean children’s book series! She visited Chronicle books at San Francisco and learned about how a book gets published (from the initial submission, to design, editing, printing etc). At the gala, she was asked to read her upcoming book on stage. Apu was initially nervous, but was pleasantly surprised upon hearing the applause and support from the audience. She said it was one of the best feelings she ever had! Thank you so much Make a wish!! 💕🥰
Please reach out to the child life specialist or social worker at your hospital if you’d like to connect with Make a wish for your kid.
Student of the year grand finale, LLS
It was an amazing night of celebration at the Student of the year (SOY) grand finale by Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS). About a dozen high school teams from the Bay area had been working very hard since Jan this year to fundraise for finding better cures for blood cancers, and…
these teenagers raised a whopping $246,000 towards the noble cause!!
We’d like to thank the SOY team for choosing Apu as the honored child hero for the event. As someone who’s shy, she was nervous to go up on stage. Thanks to the encouragement and support from the audience, she soon felt comfortable — even gave a short speech on stage — and was delighted to give the awards to the winning teams.
We met and spoke with many students and their families. So inspiring to see the energy and passion of these high school kids towards helping the community! Way to go kids!! 👏👏👍
2nd edition: “How Sunshine Returned to Joyland”
As you may know, towards the end of the first year of our kid’s cancer treatment, we’d converted her artwork during treatment into a children’s book “How Sunshine Returned to Joyland” to inspire kids to stay strong and never give up. The book response was great, and we were able to fundraise over $10k towards charity through book sales. Thank you everyone for your generosity!
The first edition was a bit rushed and verbose (we somehow managed to self publish it amidst her ongoing treatment). We are delighted to let you know that we recently released a second edition of the book. The new book is shorter, packed with artwork and funny rhymes. We hope you enjoy it!
The new edition is now available for purchase at Amazon. Please help us raise childhood cancer awareness by sharing this book with your friends and colleagues.
Below are some excerpts from the new edition. Hope you enjoy reading it!
Light the Night 2018
Huge thanks to our friends and families for joining us at the Light the Night walk yesterday! As people walked and raised their lanterns to light the night sky, it was a lovely celebration of hope and the life of our young friends — Jazelle, Jack, Tyler, Drake, Theo, Paris, Gabriel, Vivien, Suvir, Tegbir, Arush, Apu and everyone else fighting cancer. Couldn’t have been a better way to celebrate Apu’s 8th birthday, in at atmosphere filled with hope, joy and strength!!
Our deepest, heartfelt thanks to neighborhood community and friends, who helped our team raise around $5000 for Leukemia and Lymphoma Society to find better cures for all types of blood cancers. Thanks everyone for bringing us closer to a world without cancer!
Book response
Huge thanks to everyone for the heartwarming response to our book ! So far, we‘ve received ~100 book requests from various people, including kids at school, and friends. Very touching to see everyone’s support for a good cause.
Here’s a pic of our kid with the school principal and vice principal. It was quite funny to watch the principal quizzing her from a random page in the book. 😉 They shared many light moments. Bummer that she couldn’t go into the class to see all her friends (her counts were low, and it was busy due to the last week of school).
As of today, we managed to raise around $4k in donations from the book so far. All proceeds will benefit St Jude Children’s Research Hospital (as you may know, this is one of the top pediatric cancer research centers in the world, and they don’t charge a dime for treatment!).
Charity event with Buster Posey
Many of you may have heard of Buster Posey, the famous SF Giants catcher. Did you know that he and his wife have been doing a lot of charity to help pediatric cancer? Check out the Buster and Kristen Posey Fund.
On June 10, 2017, he invited a few kids undergoing treatment for cancer and their families to meet with him, and watch the game later on. He met with the kids, answered their questions, took pics, signed caps, and distributed some goodies. And whoa, what an excitement on the faces of these kids! From four year olds to sixteen year olds, everyone was thrilled. Here are some pics.
As for us parents, it was a welcome change meeting other kids and families outside the clinic or hospital setting. A chance to smile, enjoy the outdoors (good weather and game!) and share many light moments together. Oh yes, forgot to add that kiddo got Buster’s autograph on our children’s book. Will treasure that 🙂
