Tough2gether Fighting Childhood Cancer

Goal: $10,000.00

Specific Need

Your child has cancer.  It is aggressive. It is inoperable. It is terminal.  No one can prepare you for that.  Where would you turn?  As parents we faced that same question when our son Jace Ward was diagnosed with DIPG, the most deadly childhood cancer.  He was 20 and a KSU student.  Through his experience we decided that if we could not answer that question, it was time to make a path easy to find and wide enough to support childhood cancer families throughout our region.  Last year, in 2023 we raised over $2M to do just that through $10 and $20 donations.  We wish to continue our grants for families in the Manhattan - Flint Hills region battling childhood cancer. 

This includes offering each family assistance navigating clinical trials, connections to childhood cancer resources, financial support to travel to trials, assistance with unexpected expenses, emotional support during the journey, and if needed bereaved parent and sibling support.  We are now able to walk with the family and share the knowledge acquired over five years of immersion in the national and regional childhood cancer community. Last year we helped over 43 families receive direction to clinical trials and individualized right to try protocols not otherwise offered to them.

Additionally, Tough2gether Foundation is a thought leader and funder nationally of the DIPG/DMG Brain Cancer research and clinical trials.  We are currently leading a groundbreaking project to provide navigation to individualized precision medicine opportunities for children with brain cancer, the number one cause of death by disease in children.

No one can prepare you for the day you find out your child has cancer.  Having someone help prepare you every day after is a privilege Tough2gether Foundation is willing to provide.

Mission

Tough2gether Foundation fights childhood cancer alongside families impacted with this devastating news. Our mantra is Connect . Question . Collaborate . Cure.  During the last full year of operations we have done just that delivering nearly $2M in family support and research through collaborations Tough2gether has established acrossed the country.

We place special emphasis on supporting regional Kansas families and families fighting childhood brain cancer, the most deadly childhood disease. Whether it is gas card or hotels to travel to trials, paying rent when a parent must become the caretaker, or purchasing a child size casket.  We know when we come together we're Tough2gether.  No child should fight alone.

Tough2gether funds research for pediatric brain cancer working very closely with researchers across the country.  We know this journey because our son Jace fought Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG) courageously for 25 months.  The NIH cancer funding allocates only 6% to all childhood cancer.  Now, pediatric brain cancer is THE most deadly type of cancer.  In two years we've funded $2.4M in research by bringing foundations together, started a national brain tumor board, a national BrianStorm Summit for advocates and researchers, a DMG Data hub to study longitudinal data of the disease and helped 150 families. This does NOT mean we have enough funds do to everything necessary by any means.  We stretch your dollars fully and are actively involved with the research.

We're not finished.  We know this journey well.  Our son Jace Ward battled courageously for 25 months.  He inspired us to make sure the children who had not yet found their voice were never forgotten.  Join with us. 

Let's work together for the day that we are no longer afraid of what cancer can do to our children, but celebrate what was accomplished when generous caring individuals came together to help the smallest among us.  

Profile

There was one moment when we stood in silence as the doctor said "You have an inoperable, aggressive, terminal brain tumor.  I began to cry.  Jace asked "How long do I have.  I'm not afraid to die, I'm afraid I won't make an impact before I do."  The doctor replied you have 6-9 months.  Jace was 20 years old, otherwise perfectly healthy, ready for a weekend in the 'ville.

Tough2gether Foundation was founded by Jace Ward and his parents Roger and Lisa Ward of Wamego.  Jace Ward was a 20 year old KSU student headed for law school when he was diagnosed with the most deadly pediatric brain cancer called DIPG.  DIPG ravishes children and young adults stealing their voice, sight, walk, swallow, use of their limbs, hearing until the child is locked in their body.  Eventually stealing the child's last breath.  All the while, the child knows everything that is happening.  They never lose their cognitive ability.  No standard of treatment has changed for children with DIPG in 60 years.  At that time Neil Armstrong's daughter lost her life to the same tumor.  We can change this 2gether.

Jace entered clinical trials on the cutting edge in hopes of making a difference. He advocated, and we continue to advocate nationally speaking at the White House Cancer Moonshot Forum, the NIH on patient data and immunotherapy and leading an effort to end randomized trials for terminal pediatric conditions. 

We have helped over 400 families directly who feel absolutely lost.  We started parent chat feed, and now a platform for famlies with childhood cancer.  We host emotional support online, we provide family grants to pay expenses so the family can stay together, afford their health insurance and groceries while in treatment.  We listen and navigate the family to treatment, resources and sharing of brain tissue for research.  

It is humbling to see the reach of Tough2gether Foundation across the world in such a short time period within pediatric brain cancer.  However, the work is not done.  We know there are regionally families battling childhood cancer who are told, as we were, to go home and make memories.  They deserve the right to try innovative treatments and to also receive the best advice available across the country.  Tough2gether is opening regional support with navigation to treatment as centers of excellence.

We are able to do this work without incurring the cost of paid staff to date.  This allows every dollar to go into patient support and research funding.  Please join us as we continue to grow the reach of Tough2gether Foundation.

$6,844.82 received
in 26 gifts 68.45%  of  $10,000.00 Goal