“It’s so beautiful. It’s just so beautiful!”
Those were the words that Mollie said over and over as we made our way through the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. Her joy was contagious and inspiring as she looked at every flower and tree with wonder. Mollie was diagnosed with cancer in the summer of 2016.
September is National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, so I thought it was an appropriate time to share this session I did with The Gold Hope Project, an organization that aims to aid research for rare pediatric brain cancer while raising awareness through photography.
Before I started volunteering with The Gold Hope Project, I did not realize that childhood cancer affects 40,000 kids in the US every year and that less than 4% of the National Cancer Institutes’ annual budget is accounted for childhood cancer research. Non profit organizations work to provide more funding, but more has got to be done for these children who have their entire lives ahead of them.
I really can not imagine what these children and their families experience as they fight through treatment and fight for a cure. Please go gold for the month of September and consider what you can do to help. Spread the word about The Gold Hope Project, donate a session, become a volunteer photographer, send a note of encouragement to a family affected by cancer. There are many ways to raise awareness. It matters.
