Supporting Children Battling Cancer
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(WSPA) – Camp Victory, put on for kids battling cancer, went virtual this year.
Families were sent packages called “camp-in-a-box” with all of the items needed for the fun activities. This included all of the ingredients for s’mores, water balloons and family competitions from Children’s Cancer Partners of the Carolinas.
View the entire story here.
Every three minutes, a child gets cancer, according to Children’s Cancer Partners of the Carolinas. The organization cites cancer as the number one disease that kills children. And yet, they’re providing hope one box at a time.
They put a twist on the traditional summer camp, opting to take Camp Victory: Go for the Gold to a digital format due to COVID-19.
Over 160 families participated from the Carolinas, and each family got a customized box full of arts and crafts, cooking supplies and ingredients and other activities for the three-day camp experience.
Kids also got to take place in a virtual dance class and do at-home escape rooms. Danielle Kalu’s son has leukemia. Kalu said the camp has been an outlet to keep her son busy and having fun during the fight of his life.
“When these kids get cancer, our families are brought into a different world,” Kalu said. “We can’t go do everything normal children can do. So it’s been difficult for him to not see friends, but being able to have that little bit of seeing familiar faces during some of these activities has been really nice.”
Laura Allen, the executive director for Children’s Cancer Partners of the Carolinas, said the idea sparked from trying to make something special out of a camp that has been helping kids since 2008. The organization provides financial assistance and resources.
“These children battling cancer need an activity, something to do,” Allen said. “They’re isolated, and so we thought of a way we could bring our families together. We want them to be able to be kids, to not think about cancer, to not think about that clinic appointment, to not think about another COVID test to be able to go into the clinic. This camp has meant a weekend of just being kids the way all our children should be.”
See the entire story here.
Any parent’s instinct is to protect their child. Imagine being the mom or dad of an immunocompromised child with cancer in need of lifesaving treatment during a pandemic.
This is what the 1,100 families across the Carolinas served by Children’s Cancer Partners are facing. Their battle to keep their children healthy before COVID-19 was a struggle. Now, their daily lives are even more precarious as they find their little ones at the highest risk of getting the virus and face greater hurdles to treatments their children need to survive.
In addition to confronting heightened health risks, our families face increased isolation and loneliness as they endure long hospital stays for recuperation without support from family and friends.
Unfortunately, scenes like these are very real for families battling childhood cancer. In addition, they are dealing with the financial burdens that come from pursuing care recommended for their children, which often involves travel and extended stays away from home.
With many parents out of work due to the pandemic, the financial struggles have escalated. At Children’s Cancer Partners, we help Carolina families navigate their children’s cancer journey, providing crucial financial support, assistance and encouragement every step of the way.
The battle against cancer doesn’t stop, even as our world fights COVID-19.
We are ensuring our families get the increased attention and care they desperately need from our committed team of staff and volunteers to make certain their children’s cancer treatment continues.
In the Lowcountry alone, CCP is providing assistance to more than 100 families.
If you need help personally or know of someone who does, please reach out to us.
If you can help provide for these vulnerable children and their families, please contact us at ChildrensCancerPartners.org.
LAURA ALLEN
Executive Director
Children’s Cancer Partners of the Carolinas
South Pine Street
Spartanburg
View original article here.
Thomas Lott | Updated
COVID-19 is making the already devastating prognosis of pediatric cancer even more challenging across the Carolinas.
The novel coronavirus doesn’t care how old someone is or where he or she stands socioeconomically. It can infect anyone and wreak havoc on their lives, whether with serious symptoms or even the lack of them, which makes it easier to spread.
It also doesn’t care about pediatric cancer. In fact, it even favors it, as research continues to show those who are immunosuppressed are more susceptible to the negative effects of this virus.
Cancer was already the No. 1 disease killer of children in the world before the novel coronavirus, but now those affected by it are in even tougher spots.
Laura Allen is the executive director of Children’s Cancer Partners of the Carolinas, an organization that works to “provide comprehensive support and loving compassion to families whose children are battling cancer to improve their overall quality of life.”
Children’s Cancer Partners of the Carolinas is helping more than 1,100 individuals dealing with a form of pediatric cancer and COVID-19 is not making their mission easier.
“We contact a family within 24 hours of being referred to us … but now what we’re doing is we’re having to do our intakes or our meetings with these families by phone and that is less personal than the face-to-face meetings we would have with our families,” Allen said. “When you’re sitting with a mother who is teary eyed and telling you about her child’s cancer journey or just being able to share with somebody who understands what their family is going through, that face-to-face contact means a lot.”
Children and families who are dealing with pediatric cancer have been particularly impacted in other ways by COVID.
Because of the limits on the number of people who can come into hospitals due to COVID-19 concerns, oftentimes entire families cannot be there when procedures are being done.
