About
Shane’s Future Days is a 501(c)(3) volunteer non-profit foundation whose mission is to raise awareness, research funds and assist families currently battling alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma and other high risk childhood cancers. EIN: 47-2556395
What is Alveolar Rhabdomyosarcoma?
Click below to learn more about this rare childhood cancer and what we can do to fight it.
What does your donation goes towards?
Rhabdomyosarcoma is currently non-curable pediatric cancer and your donation goes directly to the research to help fight it.
Day 30: the last day of childhood cancer awareness month
This year, this month has been emotional and joyous for our family. Each day we feel blessed to have had Shane apart of our family. He taught us more in his short time on this Earth than most learn in their lifetime.
For him and others like him, we can’t ignore the reality of what cancer can do to a family. We are committed to the research, advocacy and assisting other families facing a similar battle.
Nothing will change that.
Day 19: Shane’s Future Days
In December 2014, our friends urged us to create a foundation in Shane’s honor. We were still in the middle of our fight and it seemed like the furthest thing from our mind, but with their support and encouragement, Shane’s Future Days was established.
Research and advocacy were the main focus at the time, but as we moved further into our journey and experienced more,
we realized we needed to expand our mission to include assisting families battling rare cancers.
We are incredibly thankful for this past year.
Our 3rd annual Celebration of Life raised $17,000 this year!
Where does the money raised go?
Last year, we were able to expand our footprint as a foundation. We extended our support to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Palliative Care Team’s psycho/social team.
This team was introduced to our family in November 2014 after we returned from our second opinion in Boston. Our child life specialist worked closely with Chase and Ella preparing them for the day when Shane would no longer be with us. They taught them to express their feelings and deal with their emotions in a healthy manner, through art at first and now they are able to verbally express themselves to us. They helped us create memories with Shane and have keepsakes to remember his amazing spirit.
Through them and other foundations, we have adopted families during the holiday season. Cancer is a financial burden. Having the financial assistance and someone to force you to celebrate, can help get you through the holidays and find comfort in the season more than you know. We also provide support to families throughout the year, when needed.
Additionally, Shane’s mouse model and tumor cells have assisted the Children’s Cancer Therapy Development Institute launch the first national Phase I rhabdomyosarcoma clinical trial. We are so proud that we have been able to donate $45,000 to date to this amazing research lab. This year, our donated funds went to their Curefast tumor donation program which helps continue research for rare cancers, like Shane’s.
It’s been three years since the establishment of our foundation and we feel like this is only the beginning! Thank you for being there from the beginning and helping us get this far.
Yesterday afternoon we attended the Drexel women’s soccer match against Villanova.
It was their Go Gold! game in support of the Kisses for Kyle Foundationand childhood cancer awareness month.
As mentioned before, Ella and Chase have been “adopted” by the team, so they went out to show their support!
They were treated to VIP seats in the news box.
It was a well played match with DU winning 2-1.
Day 15:
Shane continues to be on our minds every day.
When we do things, go places, we often reflect on what it would be like if he were here with us. To say he is greatly missed is an understatement.
Our children continue to reflect on their time with their brother. They speak of him all the time and believe he controls some things within our household.
Sometimes those thoughts and feelings about Shane translate into their school work. As we start a new a school year, I am putting away their items from last year.
This was a piece Chase wrote.