At seven years old, Claire should be decorating her room with drawings, choosing sparkly hair clips, running through playgrounds, and giggling with friends until her belly hurts. She should be learning new games, staying up too late on weekends, and dreaming about what she’ll be when she grows up.
But Claire’s childhood has been interrupted — stolen, her mother says — by something no child should ever have to face.
Claire is fighting metastatic Ewing sarcoma, a rare and aggressive childhood cancer that has spread beyond its original site. Instead of school projects and dance classes, her days now revolve around scans, chemotherapy, hospital stays, and conversations no seven-year-old should ever hear.
Her mother puts it plainly, painfully:
“I know this is our new reality, but I hate every minute of it. Her childhood was stolen from her. Claire has been through so much — she just deserves to be 7.”
Those words carry the weight of every sleepless night, every moment watching her daughter endure pain she cannot take away, every fear that arrives before each scan and every breath held while waiting for results.
And now, Claire’s family is holding onto hope as they await upcoming scans — images that will determine the next steps in her treatment, the next battle they must prepare for, the next chapter of a journey no family ever chooses.
Cancer forces families into a world they never expected.
In this world, time feels fragile.
Childhood feels interrupted.
Normalcy feels like a memory.
There are no simple days — only hard days and harder days.
There are no easy decisions — only choices made with trembling hands and desperate prayers.
There is no roadmap — only hope guiding them forward.
Claire has endured more in seven years than most people face in a lifetime.
She has been poked, scanned, cut, medicated, and monitored.
She has endured sickness, exhaustion, fear — and yet she continues to smile in ways only a child with extraordinary courage can.
Her resilience is breathtaking.
Her bravery is disarming.
Her spirit is a quiet, powerful reminder that children fighting cancer are so much more than patients — they are heroes.
But even heroes need help.
Claire’s journey highlights a truth that cannot be ignored: children deserve better treatments, better research, and better chances. Ewing sarcoma is unforgiving, and far too many children have too few treatment options — options that are decades old, harsh on their bodies, and often still not enough.
Research is what changes that.
Research is what saves lives.
Research is what brings new therapies, new hope, and new futures.
Your Giving Tuesday donation directly fuels that hope.
And today, every gift makes
twice the impact.
Thanks to the generous Cetina-Chiu Family, every dollar donated will be matched up to $25,000 — doubling the support for childhood cancer research, doubling the push toward better treatments, doubling the hope families like Claire’s are holding onto.
Your gift becomes part of the fight.
Your gift becomes part of Claire’s story.
Your gift becomes part of the future we want for every child facing cancer.
Because behind every cure is a child whose life could be rewritten —
and a family praying for the chance to watch them grow up.
Claire deserves birthdays without IV poles.
She deserves playgrounds instead of treatment rooms.
She deserves her childhood back — the one cancer tried to take from her.
And while we cannot erase her pain, we can fight for her future.
We can stand with her family.
We can fuel the research that gives kids like Claire more time, more options, more healing, and more years of life.
This Giving Tuesday, your donation is more than generosity —
it’s a statement that children like Claire matter,
that childhood is worth protecting,
and that hope deserves a fighting chance.