Kids Beating Cancer, Inc.: Helping Children Suffering from Cancer

Cancer is a disease that can affect anyone – even children. In the United States alone, more than 10,000 children below the age of 15 and around 3,700 teens aged 15-19 are diagnosed with cancer each year. There was a time when children diagnosed with leukemia are given only months to live, but luckily, due to advances in the field of oncology, the mortality rate of childhood leukemia and other forms of cancer has dropped significantly over the years.

Kids Beating Cancer is a non-profit organization that helps children who are going through treatment for leukemia, cancer, and other life threatening illnesses which are similar or related to cancer. The organization was founded in 1992 by Margaret Voight Guedes. She created this organization in memory of John Voight, her son, who passed away due to leukemia that same year. Since then, Kids Beating Cancer has achieved so much and done a lot towards helping sick children not only in Central Florida, where the organization is headquartered, but all across the United States as well.

One of the organization’s biggest contributions to helping children with cancer was the creation of a pediatric marrow transfer center in Central Florida. Before the center was created, parents would have to travel to other states just so their children could get a bone marrow transplant. This resulted in separation of families which usually leads to divorce due to the excessive stress the family unit has to go through in order for their sick child to get the help he or she needs.

Today, Kids Beating Cancer and the Kids Beating Cancer transplant center at the Florida Hospital for Children have served over 7,500 sick children. Through the years, Kids Beating Cancer has also recruited almost 40,000 potential marrow donors, which makes finding matches for the patients much easier. The organization has also raised more than $11 million in support from the private sector to date.