Every day, 43 families hear the words “your child has cancer”.

Our family was on the receiving end of this news when 2-year-old Ryleigh was diagnosed with high-risk ALL leukemia in 2012. We all watched as this vibrant blonde headed 2-year-old girl ran laps around a hospital room as her new team of doctors came in and said these chilling words to our family. While that particular moment is forever ingrained in our heads, it was just the beginning of a year’s long battle that our family would face.

The whole family was shocked to see the lack of new effective pediatric cancer treatments through our journey. Ryleigh was one of the lucky ones and is now a cancer survivor. Our family lives every day with the knowledge that many survivors suffer long-term late effects from their toxic cancer treatments.

We were asking the question, "Why do kids with cancer not receive more help?". We decided to create Beat Kid's Cancer based on the question " What can we do to help kids fight cancer?". We have goals to raise money to fund the research necessary to increase the survival rates to 100% and provide better treatment options, no long-term late effects. We also want to help local families battling cancer financially because we know first-hand the financial burden that this long battle can bring.