Memo: Advocacy
Advocacy for Children with Cancer
and Deadly Rare Disease
for jack and all angels
I'm just a mom. I don't have any feathers in my hat worth reporting except my kids. I have a beautiful daughter Sophie (11), and her brother Jack would have been 9 if he hadn't had DIPG. I'm one of tens of thousands of moms in the US who've lost a child to DIPG in the last 50 years, and millions who've lost a child to cancer.
It makes you or breaks you, most often both.
​
I lost my son Jack to DIPG in the summer of 2012, and Jack's Angels Foundation was given its 501(c)3 status in April of 2013. That year I began running for kids with DIPG to raise awareness, developing into "The Run for a National Day." In January of 2014, then CA-State Assemblyman Scott Wilk (now CA-State Senator) was moved by the story of Jack with DIPG, and he authored the first DIPG Awareness Resolution in California, ACR 151, designating the 4th week of May as "DIPG Awareness Week." This was the first such proclamation in the United States for DIPG. That summer I ran in Washington with other more notable runners for childhood cancer John McKay and Everett Smith, and attended the Summit for the Congressional Caucus for Childhood Cancer and the following 2 years at CureFest as well. Congressman Steve Knight, who was my State Senator at the time of ACR 151, became our Congressman in 2015, and I worked with his legislative aide Adam Brooks in the crafting of a National DIPG Awareness Resolution, H.Res.586 introduced to the 114th Congress on January 13, 2016, right after the introduction of the Moonshot Initiative.
We continue working for awareness for the National Resolution, now H.Res.69 introduced 1/30/2017 to the 115th Congress, and with our fellow advocates working for State Proclamations. We helped pass a similar Resolution again in California with Assemblyman Dante Acosta, as well as a City Proclamation for DIPG Awareness in Santa Clarita by Mayor Cameron Smyth for May 17 2017.
​
My goal as an American citizen is to see this Resolution passed, that the future brings HOPE for children with DIPG and their families for solutions, that there is active and fruitful research with cancer because saving the lives of children is a priority in our medical research system.
where kids come first for the cure!
BE THEIR VOICE
Childhood Cancer Talk Radio began in January of 2016 as Jack's Angels platform for advocacy for children with cancer. We partnered with Beck Multimedia and Motherhood Inc to work with TogiNet Radio in Tyler, TX, for a live internet hour talk-show on Thursdays at 4pm Eastern Time, which continues with an average of 600,000 unique downloads per podcast month (4 shows) over the course of a year, determined by impartial, third-party tracking. The show remains a free platform from which families, caregivers, researchers, and clinicians may amplify their message to the childhood cancer community and share their experience, strength, and hope. Write to cctalkradio@gmail.com with "story" in the subject line for a potential show interview.
​
We partner with corporations with a vested interest in the well-being of our community and in offering important resources to families of children with cancer, in order to bring the show to the public as a free resource. To sponsor our show, or to be involved with programming, write to cctalkradio@gmail.com with "promotions" in your subject line. We offer a variety of marketing options to suit your promotional needs, either non-profit or for-profit.