This morning, Thorold City Hall held a flag raising ceremony in honour of Childhood Cancer Awareness month which takes place every September.
The ceremony was organized by Patti Bauer who lost her daughter Miranda to a rare form of cancer called rhabdomyosarcoma.
“Only four to six cents of research dollars raised goes to children,” said Bauer, in a speech in front of City Hall. “Four to six cents from every buck, that’s it, pennies for our future. We need to change that. We need to screw cancer, we need more awareness, kinder gentler, more effective treatments and, please God, a cure.”
Patti’s daughter Miranda was diagnosed in September 2011 when she was only 16 years old.
“My daughter’s cancer accounts for three percent of newly diagnosed cancers worldwide,” Bauer tells ThoroldToday. “The [chemo] protocol that she was on was the first breakthrough in 30 years. We got involved with the hospital for sick children because of her treatment. We found out information that there is no research so Miranda took it upon herself to start raising funds.”
Miranda designed her own t-shirts that said: ‘screw cancer,’ and started selling them to fund research.
“In June 2012 she hosted an event and raised over 10,000 dollars,” Bauer says. “She took it all to the hospital for sick children and gave it to them: ‘Here, do something with it.’”
Miranda sadly passed away on March 27, 2013 but Patti and her family have kept her legacy alive in their continued efforts to bring awareness and raise funds for childhood cancer research.
They sell Miranda’s t-shirts and host various fundraisers throughout the year such as the Music for Miracles festival on September 17.
“Our son is in the band Stone Blind,” says Bauer. “He pays homage to his sister with his music. She was his biggest fan, they were extremely close. For him this is his way of honouring and missing her.”
To date Miranda’s Miracles Fund has raised over $145,000 for childhood cancer research.
To further raise awareness, Bauer will partake in several other flag raising ceremonies in other Niagara municipalities this week, and in honour of Childhood Cancer Awareness month Thorold City Hall will light up gold every evening in September.
Also present at this morning’s flag raising ceremony in Thorold were Reed, Griffin, and Trenton, all three of whom have survived childhood cancer.
“Thank God they’ve survived,” says Bauer. “They’re so strong and their families are such a support network for those of us who have lost but also those of us who are surviving. It’s a small world unfortunately so we do lean on each other.”
Bauer hopes that through her efforts more people will become aware of childhood cancer so that one day a cure is found.
“You need to be aware that there is childhood cancer because so many people don’t know,” she says. “You need to know that it is brutal treatments. Children need kinder, gentler, more effective treatments so that they will survive.”
