Heroes for Children – a unique nonprofit that provides financial and social assistance to families with children battling cancer – invited more than 300 children and their families to celebrate the season at the annual Holiday Heroes events in Austin, Dallas, Houston and Fort Worth.
“My daughter, Mallory, was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia on June 13, 2014, and had been in intense treatment for many months when Christmas rolled around,” said Staci Cass. “Heroes for Children had invited us to be a part of the annual Holiday Heroes event, but Mallory’s immune system was almost nonexistent, and she was too weak to attend. Even though we could not attend the event, Heroes for Children made sure our family could celebrate the season – filling our car with gifts for the entire family.”
“That year, Christmas came and we sat alone in our home, trying to sing Christmas carols and making the best of our isolation … when I remembered the Holiday Heroes gifts in my car. Tears of sadness soon became tears of joy as we opened gifts, which were the perfect distraction our family needed during this time.”
Over the past eight years, dedicated supporters Kim and Nevin Bannister – along with their children Sawyer and Ford – have helped select gift items for Heroes for Children's Holiday Heroes program. Shopping as a family, the Bannisters go aisle by aisle – thinking long and hard about what these families want, what they need – and select special gifts, all while keeping in line with the funds raised and portioned out for each family.
"The spirit of the families served by the Holiday Heroes program, coupled with their courage, strength and appreciation for what life has thrown them, is life changing for us to witness – a true gift, one we are thankful for and honored to serve,” stated Kim Bannister. “Volunteering is one thing, but getting to know the children served by Heroes for Children is what really brings us true happiness over the holidays.”
Heroes for Children created the Holiday Heroes program to help alleviate the financial burden of a cancer diagnosis and to provide a sense of normalcy, so that families can celebrate the season, despite their child’s cancer diagnosis.
Each year the program continues to grow bigger and bigger: this year more than 100 families – which included 300 children from Austin, Dallas, Houston and Fort Worth – participated in Holiday Heroes celebrations. For the first time ever, the program was supported by the newly introduced Teen Board, which helped shop and wrap gifts for families. For the second year, the program was solely funded by the support of generous local businesses, organizations and families – McKesson, Orix, Whole Foods in Dallas, Keller Williams in Austin, AED Fraternity at Texas Christian University and 4Change Energy in Fort Worth, Connectivity Source and J.P. Morgan in Houston, and Pro Spirit in McKinney.
Holiday Heroes offers full holiday joy to the families it serves throughout the year. Each holiday season, social workers choose families in need from hospitals across the state of Texas served by Heroes for Children. Families selected for the program are “adopted” and benefit from individual, corporate and community sponsors. These sponsors can contribute pure financial support, or they can get more involved on a personal level. Sponsors that choose to be more involved will go out into the community and shop, wrap and donate gifts to HFC families. To find out how to help with next year’s Holiday Heroes event, please visit http://www.heroesforchildren.org.