Three years ago I met Kirsten Sinclair, who is the Director of Fundraising for Glasgow Children’s Hospital Charity. Her work supports The Royal Hospital For Children, which is the largest children’s hospital in Scotland. This week, two sets of families in Scotland will hear the words, “Your child has cancer.” Their nightmare will begin. Kirsten asked me 20 months ago if CKc could help her kick-start a capital campaign for those very children, which would include speaking to 500 women, TV interviews, and newspaper stories. The goal was to raise 1 million pounds with her efforts. 

Today, I met with Kirsten again; and, I got the report that they DID IT!!! They raised a million pounds! Today, she shared what they have done so far with the funds, and what their plans are for the future. Today, I had the honor of meeting a research nurse that has been funded by CKc. Today, I was told they can now offer children 20 different clinical trials! 

It states in CKc’s mission statement that we “fund innovative, ACCESSIBLE research”. What does accessibility actually mean? What does it look like? It looks like providing a research nurse and infrastructure which enabled a drug company from the US to bring an immunotherapy trial to the UK. It looks like training for their team in the US so that kids from Scotland and the rest of the UK don’t need to go there for the immunotherapy trial. Glasgow Children’s is the first group in the UK doing this. BOOM! Accessibility looks like THIS! 

All of this made me so proud to partner with them. It chokes me up thinking about our mission being carried out there, and how that speaks volumes for our commitment to it. Just watching the domino effect of what has happened since this partnership began blows my mind! I am not bragging on ME, but I’m FOR SURE bragging on what CKc donors, volunteers, scientific advisory board, governing board and our team has made possible. 

When CKc began, I said this quote at our first gala: 
”I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the water to create many ripples.”
– Mother Teresa. 

Ripples are now waves! I’m so proud to be part of this team, I could jump up and down! I’m so grateful to everyone in the beginning who believed in a crazy Scottish lassy and an American trial lawyer. And now their belief has grown to the cause, the kids, the team, and the mission. And beyond that, the list of believers has grown by leaps and bounds. We are grateful! We are in this to win it and winning means changing the status quo! Period! It means more survivors! It means better survivorship! We can do better for kids battling cancer. And we WILL do better!