Community Helps Local Youth Donate $5K+ To Sick Kids At Sinai

ABINGDON, MD – Four area youth delivered to Sinai Hospital in Baltimore Oct. 19 a check worth more than $5,000 from money they raised in three targeted fundraisers in September, which was National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

As members of the all-youth board of advisors of the We Cancerve Movement, Inc., the youth first launched a GoFundMe campaign and ended the month with a fundraiser dinner at Vagabond Sandwich Company in Bel Air. These activities were designed to raise awareness around children who fight cancer, and how the network of families, school communities and worship centers support them.

Their major fundraiser was a punt-kick kickoff they dubbed “Goals for Grace” held at the Harford Sports Performance Center in Forest Hill Sept. 9. With only seven weeks of planning, the event brought in more than $4,000. That event honors We Cancerve Founder Grace Callwood, who was diagnosed in 2011 with a pediatric cancer. Having never experienced a relapse since ending treatment in Spring 2014, Callwood expects to be declared cured in February 2019.

"Going to Sinai and getting to be in the place where the kids we are working to help actually stay made what we are doing feel even better than it did before (hosting Goals for Grace). It was really cool,” reflected Colin McAtee, a 6th grade student at Patterson Mill Middle School in Bel Air. He, and fellow We Cancerve Board of Advisors members Mario Nandalal, a 7th grader at Harford Day School and Elizabeth Wesdock, a junior at C. Milton Wright High School, formed the Goals for Grace committee.

Six soccer teams and nearly 70 youth registered online for the Sept. 9 event. Several dozen more registered onsite. In addition to Harford Sports Performance Center donating their facilities and proceeds from their rented batting cages, Abingdon’s Jason Williams, owner of J. Thomas Photography which specializes in weddings and portrait photography, donated his photo booth, supplies and props. Celebrity guests were Baltimore Blast Goalie William Vanzela, and former goalie Phil Saunders.

The We Cancerve fund at Sinai opened in 2016 and assists families of sick children with out-of-pocket expenses such as co-payments, transportation costs, home-care expenses, special food or equipment, parking fees, tolls, restaurant and grocery gift cards to help families and more. With this recent addition to the fund, We Cancerve has made $12,000 cash available to families of pediatric patients.

Patients receiving help from this fund are seen at The Sinai Hospital Department of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, which is based in the Herman & Walter Samuelson Children’s Hospital at Sinai. The 26-bed Samuelson Children’s Hospital at Sinai is a state-of-the-art family-centered Children’s Hospital, which provides a broad spectrum of pediatric diagnostic, inpatient, post-surgical, intensive care, hematology and oncology, and outpatient services available to children, adolescents, and some young adults with pediatric diseases, from birth to age 26, including the vitally important accommodation for two parents to sleep in their child’s room. A large part of the Children’s Hospital is the newly renovated and constructed Pediatric Hematology and Oncology Outpatient Center, which began seeing patients in July 2010.

"We are so grateful for the generosity of all who donated to this event, and to the many people who came out to the event that cold, rainy morning. We were overwhelmed with the community's enthusiasm and support of our event," said Callwood, age 14, who's also an 8th grade student at Edgewood Middle School.

Plans are underway for the 2019 Goals for Grace fundraiser to be held in September 2019. Please check the We Cancerve website at www.wecancerve.org in February for the new date.

Photos by NeAnni Y. Ife for We Cancerve