** It's not too late to give! We are continuing towards reaching our goal as there is still a large amount left to finish funding this important grant. THANK YOU!! **
Olivia Egge is our amazing niece, cousin and friend who has spent more than a year fighting cancer that ravaged her knee. She is currently a 17-year-old 11th grader at National Cathedral School in Washington D.C. trying to go about the everyday High School business of academic work, hanging out with friends, fun things like prom and thinking about future college plans. In the process of her battle, her family learned so much about Osteosarcoma, her specific type of cancer, including the frustrating facts that no new treatments have been developed in almost 40 years, the treatment options in case of relapse are very limited and the overall prognosis discouraging.
So what’s a parent’s next step when his/her child is still at risk with a rare disease and, together with young peers around the world, needs to benefit from the promising advances of modern medicine ASAP? The bottom line is that to make a difference in the nearer term requires funding a really big grant in order to hire great talent capable of forcing a breakthrough. Not ones to wait idly by, brave Osteosarcoma patients and their parents are taking action now.
After raising seed money of over $300,000 last year, Olivia’s parents, Michael and April, helped create a new charitable organization, The Osteosarcoma Collaborative, as the fastest, most direct solution to marshaling much-needed serious funding – ultimately $1.5 million — into the hands of the most promising projects to actively research a cure. The Collaborative will request proposals from the entire cancer research community and, with a board composed of leading scientists, evaluate and choose the most promising research to fund. With the mechanics in place they are ready to go. Now we have to fund it.
To this end, Olivia’s friends and family have launched a team-based fundraising campaign, along with her fellow Osteosarcoma patient John Varney. Our team, “From Brussels with Lots O Love,” unites the widespread community of our family and friends from all over with Olivia who holds dear the years that she spent in Brussels. Olivia adored her time and friends at ISB, gymnastics at Gym Phenix, diving at Poseidon and all the great new adventures she shared with her twin brother Luke and sister Sophia. Indeed, one of her goals is to visit Brussels again, as soon as she can manage it! Her cousins Xavier, Rafa, Felix and Maria are adoring their time now in Brussels attending BSB. We want Olivia and all other kids to be able to put this terrible disease as squarely behind them as did her cousin Xavier, now a thriving 13-year-old cancer survivor who battled the disease from ages 2-5.
A huge thank you in advance for contributing any amount you can to help us fund a truly meaningful Osteosarcoma research grant and for sharing the word with family and friends to do the same. We have learned the hard truth that breakthroughs in more rare diseases like Osteosarcoma essentially have to happen via private funding so we really need your help to find a cure. Let’s show Olivia how much her worldwide family (and network of friends and family) are thinking about her through DONATIONS BIG AND SMALL!!
Please take advantage if your company has a matching donations program and SPREAD THE WORD!
Cristina & Scott Cooke (parents of Xavier, Rafa, Felix and Maria)
Pam Meisel & Maurits Lugard (parents of Anna, Alex and Theo Lugard)
PS- Should you have any questions or issues with donating via credit card or PayPal, please contact the team captains at cristinacooke@gmail.com or pmeisel@skynet.be We can always receive donations by cash or bank transfer* and submit them on your behalf to show as you wish to be listed (whether by individual name or by group/team/class name).
* For bank transfers, please use the following: Cristina & John Scott Cooke BE62 3631 5965 4461 , including in the Reference/note "Bxls Team Donation" & how you want your name to appear & we can easily transfer everything to the grant. (Great if you can email a quick heads-up to alert us) Thanks!
