Purpose of Amazing Gracie’s Gift Foundation

Our mission is not about finding a cure or funding research for childhood cancer.There are a number of foundations out there that do that much better than we could ever do. Instead, we want to focus on helping children and families through their fight with cancer. During the most difficult time of our lives, communities from near and far came together and donated gifts of money, time, thoughts and prayers to our family. From the day Gracie was diagnosed with cancer, a picture of Gracie with her big, beautiful blue eyes and contagious smile circulated through towns, e-mails, Facebook, friends, family and workplaces. As you can imagine, it reached communities near and far and everyone wanted to help. Everyone seemed to know the situation we were in was going to require their community to come together to provide moral support and financial assistance. Because of this, we were able to be with Gracie the 9 months she battled cancer, and we were able to create everlasting memories.

Over many months, Gracie received an overwhelming amount of medical care. Her amazing soul, strength and perseverance was shown throughout all her chemotherapy treatments, blood transfusions, scans and tests, clinic visits,consult visits, infections and hospital stays. It was during these times that we met many families in similar situations that needed the support and assistance like what we received from our communities and the Ronald McDonald House of Albany. We came to realize that it is very important to create as many memories as you can with your loved ones. Even though we had every hope that Gracie Would receive the miracle of being cured to make more memories here with us,that was not God’s plan. We never gave up hope but also knew to create and have as many special memories as a family that we could.

Gracie turned 1 year old when she was diagnosed and fought to the age of 21 months. She couldn’t necessarily voice what her wish for everlasting memories was, but as a family, we knew what she wanted and would wish for. We did as many of these wishes as we could, and we were able to do them because of the generosity from the many communities around us and the Ronald McDonald House of Albany. It is here that we decided to start Amazing Gracie’s Gift Foundation, a way to donate gifts of money and memories for a family to use during the most difficult times in their lives.