All the proceeds raised by Lily’s Garden are going to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and CureSearch, a national research group that conducts studies for childhood cancer.  The website, www.lilysgarden.org, provides further information.  Participants are asked to raise $250 by asking family and others to sponsor their walk in the race.  This works out to about $10 per mile if you are doing the marathon or about $20 per mile if you are doing the half-marathon.

Lily’s family is covering the administrative and overhead costs, including the T-shirts and arm bands.  So all the money for purchases and the money raised will go to the organizations that are working to find a cure for leukemia.

Lily’s family is also working on a benefit concert with the help of some that are committed to finding a cure and raising money.  In a recent concert, Wynona Judd dedicated a song to Lily and Hannah Montana (Miley Cyrus) came to see her in the hospital; both raised awareness, but it is only a beginning.  Lily faces up to three years of treatment.  During that time, she cannot go to school and her interactions with others, as well as her activities, will be restricted to protect her health.  She is beginning a long, hard road, but her prognosis is very hopeful — all because 40 years ago research studies were funded that provided the treatment protocols that are saving her life.

What are we doing today to provide research for cures for those hundreds of thousands of children over the next 40 years who will be diagnosed with childhood cancer?