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