The heartbreak of losing a child to cancer united three parents who bonded over their grief, then turned those losses into hope for other young sufferers.
“No one else can really understand what you’ve been through,” said Kennesaw’s Anna Thompson, whose 8-year-old son Lake Bozman died in 2015. “It created a bond for us. We’ve become super close.”
Thompson met Mandi Paris and Erika Depa in 2015 at Children’s Healthcare, where their youngsters were being treated for acute myeloid leukemia. The other moms also lost their children that year. Depa and her husband, Joe, had launched a fund in honor of their daughter, Melissa, to raise money for research. The couple asked Thompson and Paris’ families to join the effort.
“We all set out on this mission to keep other parents from going through what we went through,” said Joe Depa.
The Suwanee couple renamed their fund United for a Cure and began holding events to raise money. The parents have hosted kids’ festivals, golf tournaments, Christmas bow sales and carwashes. Friends and family have been strong supporters.
“The events also drive awareness,” said Depa. “A lot of the time, people don’t have an awareness of childhood cancer. We didn’t know or expect it; it was a complete surprise, and I think most people are like that. The events allow people to understand the disease and that childhood cancer research is only about 4% funded by the government. The rest is donations.”
The fund recently passed the $1 million mark in donations, and all of it went to AML research.
“We’ve particularly funded Target Pediatric AML,” said Depa of the Seattle-based project. “It’s designed to understand the genomic profile of kids with this cancer and is working on personalized, safer treatments. We’ve invested in that because it’s been the most successful.”
The fund has also supported studies around precision medicine being conducted at Children’s Healthcare in Atlanta.
“It’s bittersweet because we know the work we’re doing will not help our kids,” said Thompson. “But all three of us say we don’t want anyone else to experience what we went through. And if we can raise money for research so other kids don’t have to go through what our kids did, if we can help one child have a better chance at survival or a cure, it’s so worth it.”
Information about United for a Cure is online at https://curechildhoodcancer.org/about-cure/named-funds/united-for-a-cure.
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