MaKayla Evens help kick off our holiday campaign.
MaKayla Evans was diagnosed with Wild Type GIST in 2011, when she was 14 years old. She wanted to speak knowledgeably with her doctors and understand the terminology they were using to talk about her GIST. The Life Raft Group was there and we have provided MaKayla with the information she needed to help her make the best decisions about her cancer management and treatment. MaKayla has a dream to finish college and to help children and teens like her with cancer.
Help MaKayla realize her dream by donating to the Life Raft Group today.
We’ve done a tremendous amount in the 16 years the Life Raft Group has been around. We’ve built a sophisticated and unparalleled patient registry that has provided data that has saved countless lives. We launched a virtual tumor board to fill the needs of patients far removed from GIST centers of excellence. Our tissue bank contributes to ongoing GIST research, and our Expert Training course, GDOLs and webcasts continue to empower patients with education. Our efforts have resulted in empowered and educated patients who live longer. We have also built a family – a family who supports each other through this journey called GIST.
But it is not enough. VP Biden’s Cancer Moonshot initiative implores us to step up our efforts, and although we have already begun, the next phase of the Life Raft Group is crucial to our own “moonshot” goal – to double patient survival. We need you to make it happen, so that patients, caregivers and families can be granted additional time to make memories and to enjoy life to the fullest.
Now is the time when you can make a significant impact to our community. Funds will help the LRG to continue to empower GIST patients and their caregivers through research, treatment and cancer management, support and education.
Our 2016 holiday campaign officially launched on November 29th with MaKayla’s message of how the LRG has helped her and her dream for the future. Over the next several weeks during this holiday season, we will share with you the personal stories and dreams of some of the patients and caregivers we assist each year. We have been there for them and want to continue to be there. Join us in our commitment of doubling patient survival and help them to realize their dreams by donating to the LRG today. And please don’t just stop there. We urge you to encourage your friends and family to donate too. Together we can do it.
Fundraising Committee
Jerry Cudzil
Teena Petersohn
Amy Schelesky
Cliff Kopp
Becky Strauss
Samantha Wexler
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Elsie Hernandez and Michael Josephy and Family
Elsie and I thank the Life Raft Group for their support these sixteen years. Our initial contact with Norman helped send Elsie to the clinical trial of STI-571 in January 2001, and she continues on Gleevec to this day. We thank God for all these years to be able to see our children achieving their goals.
Isobel Barrett
I am a new GIST patient living in the United Kingdom. I came across the Life Raft Group during my research regarding my GIST.
Since then I have been welcomed with open arms hands across the sea you would say. I’ve been given so much information to support my campaign re: my treatment in the UK. I no longer feel alone and even my Macmillan cancer nurse has taken the Life Raft details to pass onto other UK GIST patients she has contact with. From my contact with the Life Raft group I have been put in contact with the UK GIST support group also.
What friends I now have across the sea and around the world, each day. I learn more about my GIST treatment and survival. You can be sure I’m going to inform my local doctor and others whom suffer from GIST tumours that there is support out there.
A big thank you from a new member.
Issie Barrett – Diagnosed June 2016
