Written by guest bloggers Morgan Leigh Garner & Courtney Dashe
If you’re not familiar with country music duo Hadley Park and their mission to end children’s cancer, read about them here. Not only are they two extremely talented artists who care about fighting cancer, they also make it a point to express gratitude to their dedicated fans.
Below is a letter they wrote to their supporters about CureSearch:
Hello friends!
We cannot thank you enough for joining us in supporting CureSearch for Children’s Cancer. As songwriters, you never know what the life of a song may look like, how it may come to be, or how it may steer the course of your own life.
In 2014, we sat down in our weekly co-writing appointment and read a blog post made by Morgan’s then 9-year-old nephew, Kaleb; and it’s because of his words in that blog post that we are writing to you now.
Kaleb was fresh off the news that he was no longer “cancer free.” He was staring at another 3 years of treatment, nausea, spinal taps, and hair loss, when he opened up to his mom one night from his hospital bed. He talked about the things he’d learned from having already gone through the whole process once already; things most people only learn well into adulthood, if ever. She transcribed his thoughts, and a beautiful blog was posted on CaringBridge. We were both so incredibly moved by the revelations that came flowing from his little mind, that after wiping the tears from our faces, we wrote our song “Things I’ve Learned”.
Watch it here:
Kaleb, now 11, isn’t the only child spending half of his childhood in-and-out of a hospital, receiving cancer treatments. Nearly 15,780 US children will be diagnosed this year alone. That’s 43 kids per day and 1 in 8 of those children WILL DIE. Research for children’s cancer is horribly underfunded. Only 4% of the NCI’s (National Cancer Institute) budget is allotted for children’s cancer.
We’ve partnered with CureSearch for Children’s Cancer because they focus on research for children’s cancer at an accelerated pace. They want to see results as much as we do. These children are our future and they are dying.
We thank you for contributing to CureSearch for Children’s Cancer and for supporting the journey of our song…Kaleb’s song, “Things I’ve Learned.” By sharing our video, you’re helping to spread awareness…and hopefully inspiring others to jump on this campaign to help save our children.
Many hugs,
Courtney & Morgan
of country music duo, Hadley Park
and proud CureSearch for Children’s Cancer Ambassadors
We are grateful to have the support of Hadley Park, and we can’t thank them enough for spreading our mission to end children’s cancer.
If you would like to show your support to Hadley Park and CureSearch, donate here.
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