"September is a disease awareness month, which you probably recognized by the gold ribbons displayed on all the corporate advertising on TV and in magazines and the special media reports. What’s that? You haven’t seen any? That’s because, for some reason, this class of diseases attracts hardly any public attention. If I said “pink ribbon,” you would have immediately thought of breast cancer. “Red ribbon” might be a little trickier, but eventually you would have come up with heart disease. But the gold ribbon is nearly invisible. It represents childhood cancers. Today, as you read this, the equivalent of a classroom full of children will be diagnosed with cancer in the U.S., more than 12,400 a year. About 4,000 child cancer victims will die this year, making cancer the number one disease-related killer of children under 14. While 75 percent of childhood cancer cases are curable, for some forms, a cure remains illusive. Only one new cancer drug has been approved for pediatric use over the past two decades. For some of the rarest, but most deadly, childhood cancers, no new treatments have been introduced in more than three decades."
How can you help?
- Proudly wear or display a gold ribbon, as the color gold represents all forms of childhood cancer. Be sure to tell anyone who asks why you are wearing or displaying the gold ribbon.
- Donate blood
- Regularly visit the blogs and websites of children afflicted with Cancer, and pray for them and their families.
- Inspire others to take action and join advocacy crusades by sharing the story of a courageous child currently battling cancer.
- Keep in contact with a family who has a child that currently fighting cancer. Let them know that they are not forgotten.
- Become a registered Bone Marrow Donor (http://www.marrow.org/)
- Honor the memory of a child who heroically battled cancer by explaining to others how your life was impacted and touched by that angel.
- Express to a family who has lost a child to cancer how their child’s legacy continues to motivate you.
- Make a donation in celebration of a childhood cancer survivor or in loving memory of a child taken too soon by the disease.
- Dine at Chilli's during their "Create-A-Pepper" campaign. All of the profits will be donated to St. Jude's Children's Hospital.
- Volunteer at a local pediatric oncology hospital.
- Attend community awareness events (such as those hosted by GiftToCure, Alex's Lemonade Stand, and/or Candlelighters Childhood Cancer Foundation.
- One in every 330 Americans develops cancer before the age of twenty.
- On the average, 36 children and adolescents are diagnosed with cancer everyday in the United States
- On the average, one in every four elementary schools has a child with cancer. The average high school has two students who are current or former cancer patients.
- Cancer is the leading cause of death by disease in children under the age of 15 in the United States.
- Childhood cancers affect more potential patient-years of life than any other cancer except breast and lung cancer.
- Despite these facts, childhood cancer research is vastly and consistently underfunded