Ten highlights for ten years: Families
2025-05-14
Owen's tenth and final highlight features a few families who are our 'why'.
The importance of families sharing their journeys and the challenges of childhood cancer is profound for The Kids’ Cancer Project. These personal stories play a vital role in raising awareness, driving fundraising, influencing government support, shaping policy and building supportive communities.
For the last 10 years I have been sharing the statistic that every day “3 families hear the words your child has cancer” and that "950 children are diagnosed with cancer in Australia each year." These personal stories shared by families across Australia give us a personal connection and make the statistics real. We get to see the faces, emotions, and understand the heart wrenching stories of the daily and sometime lifetime struggles behind those numbers.
Stories shared by our family ambassadors highlight the children and family's resilience, even in the face of tragedy, which in many cases inspire other families and our supporters. For many of the families who’ve lost a child, sharing their story has been a way for us to honour and preserve their child’s legacy while helping others.
One more recent example is our Tax Appeal feature family, the La Verde’s. Angelia was diagnosed with B-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia when she was just three years old. Her experiences have shaped her family’s story, and it’s why her dad Andrew fights for better treatments for other kids.
Austin Family
The Austin Family have been wonderful advocates of The Kids’ Cancer Project, starring in our awareness campaign which you can see below. Alec, a childhood cancer survivor, and his dad Peter were on 2GB radio in the lead-up to K’day 2023. Alec’s twin brother, Troy, is a fine young man and their mum Shirley is a pillar of strength for the entire family unit.
Kane Family
In 2017, at the age of 8, Declan tragically lost his battle with neuroblastoma. His memory lives on through his family and the SuperKids SuperHeroes SKSH fundraising group, founded by his parents.
Launched in 2016, Superkids Superheroes, honours the life of Declan, who passed away. Now in its tenth year, 'SKSH’ continues to gain popularity each year, thanks to the work of the Western Australia Football Commission, the NAB AFL Auskick, Community Clubs and SuperKids SuperHeroes.
Over the course of the decade, SKSH with the support of the WA Aussie Rules clubs have helped raise over $445,000, which has allowed us to fund research and clinical trials for Neuroblastoma, the tumour declan was diagnosed with. I look forward to joining them in Perth this Sunday for the 10-year anniversary of SKSH at the Auskick event.
The Freeneys
In 2015, Emma and Pete Freney’s joy at their son Baxter’s arrival quickly turned to heartache when the two-week old baby started to show signs of serious health issues. Their world was turned upside down when they discovered Baxter’s discomfort whilst feeding and distended belly were signalling a big problem. At just five weeks old, baby Baxter was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia (AML).
He immediately began a gruelling 12 months of treatment, including four rounds of back-to-back chemotherapy and spending his first Christmas
Baxter now has a best friend to help him along his continuing journey; his little brother Dallas. Knowing that their son will suffer ongoing developmental delays, the Freney’s are passionate supporters of The Kids’ Cancer Project. They share the organisation’s focus on using scientific research to eliminate the devastating physical and psychological effects of current cancer treatments.
“The Kids’ Cancer Project means more than an organisation with cancer in its name to me. They are working to change the pattern, the outcomes, the heartache, the devastation, through science,” Emma says.
The De Kort family
In October 2017, Alana de Kort was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma, a cancerous tumour that typically grows in or around the bones. In a ten month stretch she endured 16 rounds of chemotherapy and 16 rounds of radiotherapy to combat the disease. Sadly, in July 2018, one week before her fifteenth birthday, Alana passed away, leaving her family truly devastated.
Since that time, the de Korts have worked tirelessly to honour Alana’s memory by raising awareness and funds for childhood cancer research under the Blue Bottle banner.
The Blue bottle fundraising group came up with some innovative fundraising ideas – a Guinness World Record forming the largest human image of a pineapple, a jet ski trek from Long Reef Beach in Sydney to Agnes Water in Queensland, with fundraising events throughout the trip and culminated with a Gala dinner to wrap up and celebrate the Blue Bottle team’s successes and achievements in raising awareness and funds.
As a family they are passionate about raising awareness of childhood cancer and believe spreading awareness will lead to greater support for research.
The Giles Family
Studio owner and franchisee of Studio Pilates Ashlea Giles launched Hundreds for Hope to raises more funds and awareness of childhood cancer. Inspired by just how devastating a diagnosis of children’s cancer really is. Hundreds for Hope began in 2019 and was a resounding success with our communities raising over $30,000 for the Kids’ Cancer Project in Australia and the Child Cancer Foundation in New Zealand.
Ash and Ryan, owners of Studio Pilates six-year-old son, Nash, has a brain tumour and has had both chemotherapy treatment and brain surgery. Ash admits to “falling off the face of the earth” when Nash was first diagnosed.
Studio Pilates has played an amazing part in raising awareness of childhood cancer, by annually hosting Hundreds For Hope - a fun open day with free Pilates classes, market stalls, entertainment and give-aways while passing the hat around for all kids with cancer.
The Weir Family
I don’t think I can adequately put into words what the video below can evoke emotionally. To me, it sums up why we do what we do at The Kids’ Cancer Project. The Weir Family are an incredible group of people changed forever by their daughter Evie’s diagnosis with stage four neuroblastoma.
We've shattered the glass ceiling on my $100,000 fundraiser, but we're not done. Help us futureproof research for kids diagnosed with cancer by hitting the button below.