Why do you #CareCureThrive?

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Why I Care. Cure. Thrive.

5 min readMay 2, 2017

Imagine a world without childhood brain tumors. That’s the vision the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation is fighting for.

It’s a vision we share with the families and friends of our Stars — the 28,000 U.S. children diagnosed with a brain tumor.

With the medical and healthcare communities who work with these families.

With the donors, volunteers, fundraisers, nonprofits and corporate partners who give their time and resources to the cause.

And with you, reading this right now.

Because it’s a vision none of us can accomplish alone.

We need an army of advocates fighting for futures. Advocates who have committed to care for families along their entire journey, cure the deadliest childhood cancer, and help survivors thrive.

Care. Cure. Thrive. isn’t just the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation’s new mission statement. It’s a rallying cry our entire community can share in.

That’s why we’re marking May’s Brain Tumor Awareness Month with Why I Care. Cure. Thrive.

Each one of us has a different reason we’re fighting for futures, and we want to hear yours. Leave a response at the end of this article that tells us:

Why I Care.
Why I Cure.
or Why I Thrive.

Or share your reply on social media with the hashtag #CareCureThrive. Answers in an image or video format are also welcome.

We’ll collect your reasons throughout Brain Tumor Awareness Month to share on our website, in social media and beyond.

Here are a few reasons already shared by members of the pediatric brain tumor community.

Why I Care.

Bill Phelps is a volunteer with the Atlanta Ride for Kids, a motorcycle charity ride that takes place June 4th and benefits the PBTF.

I’ve been blessed in many ways — I’m healthy, married my high school sweetheart, the love of my life, raised two healthy, fine young men who now have families of their own.
After attending my first Atlanta Ride for Kids in 2009, and listening to the stories of the Stars and their families, I couldn’t help but feel truly blessed — and lucky.
Being able to put whatever skills and abilities I can share to affect the lives of the Stars and their families has given me a purpose, a way to give thanks for all that I have.
Getting to know the families, their struggles, and sadly for some, their loss, I am driven even more to do what I can to help them in any small way I can.
This is why I care.

Allison Fine’s brother, Marshall, was diagnosed with a brain tumor as a toddler. Her books The Sibling Project and The Sibling Project II share stories of siblings of children who have or had cancer.

I care because I have spent 17 years in a world that none of my friends could even begin to understand and because so many other families feel the same way.
I care because nobody should have to go through this alone.
The impact of pediatric cancer, specifically brain tumors, spans so much wider than imaginable, and the importance of providing support for healthy family members as well as a patient cannot be overlooked.
I care because in order to find a cure we have to work as a team and support everyone around us in any way possible.

Why I Cure.

Mark Kieran, MD, PhD is the Clinical Director, Brain Tumor Center, Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center.

Brain tumors have the dubious honor of being the most common cause of cancer-related death in children. Advances in science have provided us with the tools we need to finally understand the processes that went wrong to cause most pediatric brain cancer and more importantly, the treatments needed to change the course of disease.
There is no better profession that I can think of than to dedicate oneself to this cause and the advances that we have achieved as well as improvement on outcome, not just in terms of survival, but also in the quality of survival. These advances, combined with the promise of more advances to come, make this an incredibly fulfilling endeavor.

Why I Thrive.

Chase Jones is a pediatric brain tumor survivor, PBTF Board Member and MBA Candidate at The Wharton School, The University of Pennsylvania.

I thrive because somebody gave before me. I look in the mirror daily as a brain tumor survivor, grateful for the gift of life at hand but acknowledging that it’s due to somebody else before me.
How I thrive now? Making sure I’m just as dedicated to help the next child beat this disease — that starts with the effort to do something, because the only way I can thrive is with the effort to ensure a world where the words cancer and cure are in the same sentence forever.

Turn awareness into action during Brain Tumor Awareness Month.

Each May, Brain Tumor Awareness Month provides us an opportunity to inspire others to fight for children diagnosed with a brain tumor.

In addition to telling us Why I Care. Cure. Thrive., you can join us throughout Brain Tumor Awareness Month by:

Sharing the graphics on our social media toolkit with the hashtags #CareCureThrive and #BTAM.
Attending one of our events across the country.
Participating in one of our upcoming giving days.