We had always heard about the great things Make-A-Wish does for children with life-threatening illnesses, but were not aware of all the other great charties that cater to children, such as Jude.
My favorite such charity is HopeKids. We joined HopeKids a few months after Jude’s brain cancer diagnosis. HopeKids provides an ongoing calendar of free events (like private movie screenings for HopeKids families, tickets sporting events, theater, etc.). The idea is to always give the children something to look forward to in order to encourage them to get through the next phase of treatment, etc. One HopeKids event that I’m really looking forward to is an upcoming brain tumor family picnic. The details of the event sound so fun, but I’m really looking forward to networking with other families and finding out more about proton radiation and any other treatment options.
Another great chartity we’ve learned about through Jude’s condition is the Ronald McDonald House, which provides free meals to families with a child in the ICU and sometimes free lodging (we save our pop tabs for this organization).
I also recently leanred about an organization called Icing Smiles. It is a nonprofit organization that provides custom celebration cakes to families impacted by the critical illness of a child. Although 6th Jude’s birthday is a year away, I recently requested a dream cake for him. Jude is already looking forward to coming up with design ideas and this is just the kind of thing that he needs to look forward to.