Improving Health Outcomes in Young Cancer Patients

We tried something courageous and new this summer, something we’ve never done before.

Over the summer HopeLab proudly sponsored a music tour by singer-songwriter and four-time Hodgkin’s Lymphoma survivor Ryan Hamner. He traveled across the South and Southeast, to share his story, encourage cancer patients and offer free Re-Mission video games.  He visited hospitals and cancer camps to reach out to kids going through what he experienced as a young cancer patient.

At one camp, Camp Smile-A-Mile in Alabama, Ryan was able to sponsor a Re-Mission game demo night and workshop where he gave games to all of the campers.

Ryan touched people’s lives by sharing his music and giving games to young patients for free.  Your donations made this possible!

Thank you for supporting us in finding new ways of getting Re-Mission to kids.

Links:

• Hear the Heart Tour

For five years now, HopeLab has been participating as health and wellness exhibitors in the the Celebrate Life with HOPE event. The first year HopeLab participated, the event was held at Griffith Park in Los Angeles, CA. Since 2007, it has been held on the back lot of Paramount Studios in Hollywood, CA. Celebrate Life with HOPE is an event sponsored by the HOPE program at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. It’s the largest annual event of its type in the nation with 2,400 kids with cancer and family members in attendance.

My colleagues Robin Avant and Richard Tate set up shop to demo Re-Mission and give away pens, stress balls and other fun Re-Mission related materials. While they were there, a few kids enthusiastically approached Robin and Richard to let them know their fondness of Terika, HopeLab’s Research Assistant. Why Terika? Well, she’s been the one from HopeLab coordinating all of our user testers at hospitals and camps, down the west coast to Montana and as far out as the east coast. She does a fabulous job of making our cancer patient user testers feel at home as she works directly with them, as evidenced by our teen Re-Mission enthusiasts.

We’ve found that Celebrate Life is a particularly joyful event where we get to connect with kids and their families, as well as develop deeper community with those serving kids affected by cancer. As Robin put it, “The one thing that stands out for me is that attendees are surrounded by love and that is evident in the eyes of every person there and in everything they do to help make the event a success.”

Thank you for supporting our work! Won’t you join us in celebrating?