It's almost time to spread some love and JOY to our kids!

We have less than a week left until the cut-off date. All the ladies at Joy For Kids With Cancer are excited about meeting with Toys R' Us to go pick up presents for all the kids, we are even more excited for Christmas morning to take the presents to all the different hospitals for the kids!

We are very close to our goal but we are still working hard to get the last $1000.00
Please help us spread the word! We are looking for corporate sponsorships. The corporate sponsorships start out at $250.00 and can go as high as the company would like.

Each company that signs up for a sponsorship will have their company logo and link on our website. They will also have their company logo on all banners, shirts and the information we advertise for the Charity Walk we are having next summer.

Please sign up today or ask your company to become a sponsor! Remember, every $1 counts in helping bring a smile to all the sick kids that will be battling cancer on Christmas morning instead of being at home in front of a Christmas tree with their family!

We have a lot of letters with stories of children and families who are dealing with cancer and how they are appreciative of what we are doing! This week is a little hectic but we will be posting more stories soon!

Thanks for all those who have donated and all those who are helping us spread the word! It means more than you know!

Not only do we want to help bring happiness on Christmas.. we want to find a cure too!

As many of you know we were able to create this charity foundation with the help of a few people at Children's Cancer Association & St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

As a partner of St. Jude, we have agreed to use 10% of our donations to go towards helping families that aren't able to pay for treatment and research for finding a cure! This makes the donations we receive much more important! Not only are you helping bring smiles to kids int their hardest moments.. you are helping find a cure as well!

A little about St. Jude!

St. Jude covers the cost of everything—food, travel and lodging for patients and a family member.

St. Jude is the only pediatric cancer research center where families never pay for treatment not covered by insurance. No child is ever denied treatment because of the family's inability to pay.

In 2009, Parents magazine named St. Jude the No. 1 pediatric cancer care hospital in the country, based on the magazine's survey of more than 75 children's hospitals nationwide.

We at Joy For Kids With Cancer are honored and excited to be a part of such a great hospital!

Please donate today... every $1 helps!

Why Joy For Kids With Cancer is important to me.. Joni Kennedy.

When Kelly first tome me about this great cause, I immediately put my "supporter hat on and have gone to work! I am trying to spread the word to everyone I know in order to help in any way I can. Here is the reason Joy For Kids With Cancer is special to me...

I am a childhood cancer survivor who knows what it is like to be stuck in the hospital. I was diagnosed with Stage 2 Hodgkin's Lymphoma when I was 17 years old. I was one of the oldest kids in pediatrics and, initially, I was not so friendly to the other kids. Then one day a counselor threw me into a room and made me talk to her. To make a long story short, I was afraid to befriend them in case they "died on me" and she made me realize that these kids looked up to me. Their lives were mostly confined to the hospital and I was like an older sister to them. Luckily for me, my cancer was not as life threatening as some and I was not as confined to the hospital as they were.

So, I made it my mission to be the best big sister I could be. It was amazing to see their faces light up when I would bring them stuffed animals that I won at the fair, or hats that I made with puff paints with their names on them. Not only did it put a smile on their faces, it helped me get through some of the tougher times that I had faced personally. We had a bond that I will cherish for the rest of my life.

Unfortunately some of the younger kids, Mikey, Erica, and Hannah, all succumbed to their cancer and 17 years later I am a survivor. I often question why I am the survivor when, at 17, I had already lived a longer life than they had a chance to live. But in realizing that everything happens for a reason, I know that one of those reasons is for me to help with causes like this one. If I can be a part of putting a smile on a cancer-stricken child’s face on Christmas (or any other day) then that is enough for me.

I hope that everyone that sees this will pass it along to their friends and families and Joy For Kids With Cancer is able to touch as many lives as possible. Not only will this bring a smile to the face of a child, it warms the heart of their family, friends, hospital staff and the people bringing the toys – this truly is a win-win situation in a very hard time in peoples lives.

Happy Holidays!!!
Joni Kennedy

Happy Sunday!

Thank you for all the support so far! We are excited to make everyone aware of Joy For Kids With Cancer!

As most of you know, this is a newly formed charity! Our main website is under construction that we hope to have up in the next few weeks! This is our first Christmas adventure and we are all very excited to be a part of such a worthy cause! It is a lot of work to get a charity foundation under way but it is worth it to see a smile on any sick childs face, even if it's just one. We hope to eventually bring smiles to millions!

On Monday, we will be posting our mailing address for donations, etc. but for now you can donate online at our paypal site which is located on the top right of our blog site.

So far, we have scheduled visits with hospitals in Los Angeles, San Diego, Seattle, Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Boston, Vancouver & London which is AMAZING! Think of all the kids battling cancer smiling on Christmas day!

The most amazing news of the day is that Toys R' Us has agreed to match every dollar spent at their stores buying presents for the kids! I cried when I received the letter.. this is a HUGE thing for us and the kids we are trying to help. This basically means that your donation is practically doubled! I can't wait to see the faces on the childrens faces!

Have a good day everyone and please help spread the word! If you donate even $1 or $5 and all of your friends do the same, imagine all the kids we would be able to bring happiness to!

Some of the kids that you can help by giving a small donation!

Please help us bring joy to kids like the ones you see below who will be spending their holidays fighting against a terrible illness! We are excited to bring a little happiness to as many kids as we can during such a hard time!

The reason why Joy For Kids With Cancer is important to me!

Hi, My name is Maria Johnston and my neice, Sarah Blackwood, lost her battle with ALL (Acute Lymphcytic Leukemia) in 1996. She was only 11 years old!


To everyone she knew, she was the most incredible little girl you would ever meet. All she ever wanted to do was help people and make all those around her happy! The day my sister called to tell me she was diagnosed with stage 3 ALL, I felt like the floor slipped out in front of me. Why, why did this little girl who spent her childhood giving back to those who were less fortunate then her, have to go through this! I wished that I could take all of the cancer out of her and put it in my body! I wished I could take the pain away from her, her mother and our whole family. We would not be the same without her so we joined together and knew we had to help her fight it! She deserved to have a long life full of happiness!


We spent the next 2 years supporting her.. helping her through Chemo treatments, surgeries, radiation! You name it, she was put through it! She spent more time in the hospital than at home! It broke my heart because from the day she was diagnosed to the day we said goodbye, she never complained, never asked why she had to have cancer. She believed she was given cancer because God knew she could handle it and that she took the pain on so some other child didn't have to suffer. That's just how she was.

When my sister called me to tell the Dr's said that the treatments were too much and they made the decision to take her home and spend the all the time they could I begged for god to take me instead of her.. this couldn't be happening to our family! This couldn't be happening to my sweet Sarah! It took me a long time to get over the anger of losing her but then I remember her smile!
I took as much time off of work as I could. We took her to California and rented a beach house. She was in heaven. She made her mom & I promise that we would continue her work of helping other for her and I have been working with the Childrens Cancer Association ever since!


Rachel wrote this in her diary that she gave to her mother before she passed.


"As you know I have lost this battle but don't be scared Mom because I don't feel like I have lost.. I feel like I am just moving on to be able to help people in a greater way than I am able to do here. I will be your angel mom but I need you to be an angel on earth and keep helping all the people we have. My illness has given me a lot of time to think about things. I have received a lot of love and support from our family, friends and community. It has made me realize how important the lesson of charity is. Charity is unselfish giving of oneself to another and through these past few troubling years I have come to realize how important it is to have people in my life that care. Though this illness may have slowed me down a bit it has given me the opportunity to get the message of charity to others in my community and show them there truly are other treasures contained in the pot of gold that I have found in a life of service".



When Susan Godfried from Childrens Cancer Association contacted me about a new project she was working on called "Joy For Kids With Cancer" in which they were going to fund-raise and use the money to take presents to kids in the hospital on Christmas, I knew I had to help this foundation get under way. This would be just the thing that Sarah would love and beg to be a part of!

With that said, I ask that if you are reading this to please donate what you can so we can bring a little cheer to all the kids like Sarah who are stuck in the hospital and need to know that we, as a community, acknowledge their bravery to fight something at such a young age! Please help us make Sarah's dream come true and help other's this Christmas season!

God Bless you Sarah and all the other children out there that remind us whats important in life!

Thank You,

Maria

Quote Of The Day!

"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do."

-Eleanor Roosevelt

Thank You to all who are donating!