Holidays in the Childhood Cancer World
It's been a busy month of December! Thank you all for kicking the month off so strongly with #GivingTuesday. We raised almost $100,000! That money is very much needed and goes out the door very fast.
I will have final totals for you after the close of the month, but it looks like we will be setting another record this year with our B+ Family Assistance Program. No one in the country helps more families of kids with cancer and this year, we'll be approaching $3.0MM in assistance! To give you an idea of the kind of families we help, please meet 8 year old, David. David's Social Worker writes:
"David was originally diagnosed with Leukemia in 2013 at the age of 17 months. He completed treatment 3.5 years later and his cancer relapsed 2 weeks after end of treatment. He has since had various experimental trials for his 3 relapses. While he was in remission, David's Dad was unable to work for over 7 months as he battled Lymphoma. David's most recent relapse was found in April of this year. Unfortunately, the Leukemia has invaded his brain and he will require extensive treatment to clear up that cancer in hopes of proceeding to a bone marrow transplant. David will be hospitalized for a minimum of 30 days for transplant and will require close monitoring for at least a year. For the past, almost 7 years, the family has been required to pay their out-of-pocket maximum for insurance every single year. In October, the company that they get their insurance from was bought out and they are required to meet their out-of-pocket max for the second time this year. They also currently have medical bills for radiation that was given at an out-of-network facility because our hospital doesn't provide radiation."
David's family asked for help paying their mortgage this month and, thanks to you, we were able to help them out.
Amazon Smile
As you're doing your holiday shopping, you can help The Andrew McDonough B+ Foundation fight childhood cancer without even realizing it. Just select us as "your" charity on Amazon Smile and we will get an aggregate percentage of everyone's purchases. It all adds up...and we do NOT see anyone's purchases. Everything is aggregated. Thanks!
NFL "My Cause, My Cleats"
In case you missed it on B+ social media, LA Ram starting linebacker, Troy Reeder, selected The B+ Foundation as his charity for the annual "My Cause, My Cleats" campaign. As you'll see on the picture, our logo and the names of some of the B+ Heroes were displayed on Troy's cleats. Troy is dedicating the rest of his season to The B+ Foundation and our B+ Heroes. You can donate to Troy's campaign and everyone who donates at least $25 will be in a drawing to win Troy's game cleats from the Rams win over the Seahawks. Troy is a graduate of Salesianum (Andrew's school) and the University of Delaware. B+ Hero, Danny Feltwell, who we paired with UD Football several years ago, got a really cool experience of visiting with Troy on the field at the LA Coliseum before the Rams' win over the Seahawks.
Please consider including our B+ Heroes in your holiday giving this year with a donation. Thank you very much.
B+
Ali & Andrew's Dad