Reprinted from a letter we received from a 7th grader at Nagle Middle School in Cincinnati, OH. (We immediately called the principal and the teacher — wish we could have called his parents, too — to thank them for giving the student the environment that helped him create such a letter.)
Dear Christine and Ria,
I am a seventh grader at Nagel Middle School. I am doing a project in school, what I will and won’t stand for. I won’t stand for cancer, especially in kids. Mainly because with kids, it’s a lot more emotional and scary than it is for an adult. I found the Dragonfly Foundation and it really touched me when I read some of the stories on your website. The fact that all these people have come together as a community really makes you want to get involved. “The Dragonfly Foundation is a light in a dark place. You allowed B to feel joy and happiness during a time of pain and sadness.” When I read this on your website, I felt so touched by what you don’t to make the kids feel better, I can’t imagine feeling the things that they are feeling. And the fact that the Dragonfly Foundation can change what they feel and make them just such a happier person. I want to get involved with the Dragonfly Foundation, I would love to volunteer.
My friend is very involved with the dragonfly foundation and she told me about it. I thought it sounded so interesting and heartwarming that these people do these amazingly kind things for children/families in need. I realized, I wanted to help. I want to make these people and families forget about these bad things that they are going through. I have a few family members and friends who have been diagnosed with cancer. My mom had skin cancer but she was cured in time. I would love to volunteer sometime at the Dragonfly Foundation. I love kids and would love to meet some.
I think that awareness of cancer if very important. Many people know about cancer, but that doesn’t seem like it’s helping or “enough” to just know about cancer. People need to understand how hard it is to know someone or have someone you deeply care about with cancer. Or even yourself with cancer is extremely painful. Not just physical pain but also emotional. The thought of leaving someone you love so much, or that you are told you have so and so many days to live is the hardest words someone can hear. Most people don’t know how painful this is until they can relate and I think that everyone should be able to relate and to care about what is going on in some of these people’s lives. People only know how hard or easy or happy or sad something is until they feel that. They don’t understand those feelings if they see someone they have never seen before feel that. This is why awareness is so important. Not just for cancer but for all the awful things in the world. I personally however am very passionate about cancer considering how many lives it threatens and steals form the beautiful people in this world.
I recently read a story about a girl (a long time ago) who was diagnosed with cancer. She was told she has 30 days to live. She continued to attend school and she did everything the same, she didn’t want cancer to change her life. But sadly it did. She lost her hair because of the treatment she was given. She wore a wig to school and other public places. Walking in the hall one day a friend of hers passed her. Her friend pulled off her wig and the wig fell to the floor. She went through that almost every day and to even hear about that happening makes me want to cry. I can’t imagine someone treating someone like that. She can’t help it that she has cancer. I think that at the dragonfly foundation, that they make these people feel that they aren’t any different, they get their minds off things and I think that is a great thing to do.
When someone has cancer they don’t usually want to draw attention to themselves and they don’t want to be treated in any kind of special way and be treated extra nicely too. Most people want to keep their life as normal as they can and sometimes thats a very hard thing to do especially in an emotional time like this. Dragonfly foundation is more like a helping hand to help catch you as you are falling so you don’t completely fall. The Dragonfly foundation helps you to be more leisure and less stressed and scared. When someone has cancer, you wouldn’t want them to worry and too be up all night crying, scared to die. Someone with cancer really just needs a hand there to hold, a smile there to laugh with and The dragonfly foundation really helps with that. People should really know about how much pain these people go through, and be affected by that in some way. This way they can help in any way possible. When more people come together nothing can stop it and with more volunteer and donations cancer will hopefully vanish into something as little as a foggy memory. Cancer is a very tragic thing and I won’t stand for it.
Raising awareness for cancer is extremely important and I think that if people understood how these people felt then they would show a lot more compassion for it and they would support cancer foundations much more. This would create more donations and eventually lead to a cure. If they found a cure then people would be more happy about it too because not only is cancer going to stop taking and threatening the lives of us. People also will be happy because they can be able to proud of himself/herself and be able to say, “Hey I helped with that.” I think that would be an amazing feeling to know that you made a difference for the better and if people knew that they would know more about cancer and how much it helps just to donate your time/money. The littlest things can help and that’s an amazing feeling to know that you helped, you made a difference in someones life. Everyone wants to be proud of himself/herself and have others be proud t to know you. If people did more great things to support them, people could be proud. Cancer is a serious matter and it’s not cool at all. If everyone helped then we can raise awareness and beat it!
Sincerely,
J