Fighting Childhood Cancer With the B+ Foundation
Did you know that childhood cancer is the #1 disease killer of children and teenagers, more than any other disease? For our 2022 Greatest Baker Competition, we helped raise awareness for the Andrew McDonough B+ Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to providing financial and emotional support to families of children with cancer nationwide and funding critical, cutting-edge childhood cancer research. We are overjoyed that the Competition raised over $1.3 million to help The B+ Positive Foundation fulfill their mission! Here’s what you should know about this incredible organization:
Andrew McDonough’s Story
The Andrew McDonough B+ Foundation honors the memory of Andrew, a 14-year-old athlete and star student from Wilmington, Delaware. In January of 2007, Andrew played in a Pennsylvania state championship soccer tournament and helped lead his team to victory. Within two days of the tournament, he went into cardiac arrest. Andrew was diagnosed with AML Leukemia—the doctors didn’t expect him to live through the night. Extraordinarily, Andrew fought for 167 days before passing.
“Andrew’s B+ blood type became the perfect message — BE POSITIVE — to reflect how he lived his life and how he inspired others to do the same.”
The B+ Foundation was established in Andrew’s honor with the goals to provide financial help to families of children with cancer, to support childhood cancer research, to advocate for more funding, and to spread The B+ message: “It’s not a grade. It’s an attitude.”
About The Andrew McDonough B+ Foundation
Every school day 46 children will be diagnosed with cancer. Each week, 49 children die from cancer and nearly 40,000 children are in treatment. As you can imagine, treating childhood cancer is expensive. According to one study, the cost of childhood cancer treatment begins at around $833,000. The B+ Foundation is the #1 provider of assistance to families of kids with cancer, helping over 3,000 families from over 200 hospitals nationwide last year. They are committed to keeping their expenses low so that they can help as many families battling childhood cancer as possible.
Sadly, only 7% of the National Cancer Institute’s annual cancer research budget is allocated to childhood cancer research, and in the past 35 years, only 3 new FDA-approved drugs have been specifically developed to treat children with cancer. This is why the B+ Foundation is dedicated to funding groundbreaking cancer research at top institutions nationwide. They have provided funding to over 150 critical, cutting-edge childhood cancer research projects at top institutions globally.
Learn more about The Andrew McDonough B+ Foundation and how to get involved here.
