Thanks for visiting my fundraising page.  The picture you see here was how we chose to introduce our first son to the world eight years ago.  I can hardly believe all that has happened since I took this photo of a ten-day-old Jack on my bed.  My mother had died of cancer just months earlier and I would grimly joke that Jack was my little consolation prize.  Somehow it helped me to forgive a god that would take away the one person in my life who had always been my champion.  So, in seeming exchange, I received this precious little boy.  I always loved this picture for his wry grin, which to me always looked like he had it all figured out.  All these years later and I'm still trying to figure out those things that Jack was born knowing.  Like what happened to derail this magical life that we had dreamed for him -- a life that had zero to do with magic beans, charity bike rides and tireless efforts to create hope where there was none.  Or how to believe and keep faith when you are asked to surrender your one and only consolation.

This fund has become very important to our family as a means to keep Jack's spirit alive.  We tell ourselves that his life had meaning because of all of the good works we are able to do in his name, even though we would happily go back to our self-absorbed ways just to have him here now.  I often wonder if we would have done any of this had he survived.  My best guess is that we would have walked off into the sunset and never looked back, like so many others.  It's a hard thing to admit, because when you are in the fight, you learn of so many things that need to change, most especially the chronic underfunding of pediatric cancer.  And yet, had we got the result we so desperately wanted, we would have turned a blind eye to it all and let it be somebody else's problem.  I have to believe that helping to change these things must be a part of why Jack was put on this planet to endure all that he did, so on his behalf, we raise awareness and hope for change.  We hope that it begins to matter to people that we as a nation lose six children each day to cancer, which means it really isn't all that rare and that we're really not doing enough.

Help us by making a donation and allowing us to continue to fund research grants for the toughest-to-treat pediatric cancers.  Our typical grant is $20,000 and our goal is to award five grants in the coming year.  Many thanks for your support -- and don't forget to forward this to anyone who you think might want to donate too.

Thanks again,

Linda & Jack