National non-profit organisation Cupcakes of HOPE is celebrating their sweet success having raised more than R450 000 in February – all of which will go towards helping to change the lives of children suffering from cancer.
More than 300 different events took place at different locations across the country to mark International Childhood Cancer Awareness Day and the organisation encouraged volunteers to spread the love even further throughout the month.
“We have been so busy – it has just been mind blowing. We had not planned for this. The response has been amazing,” said Cupcakes of HOPE national founder Sandy Cipriano.
At each fund- raising event a group of volunteers, called Cupcake Angels, give up their time and energy and literally ‘bake a difference’ in the lives of children suffering with cancer. The volunteer-turned-bakers offer up their decorated cupcakes in return for a donation. The fund-raising events took place at offices, schools, shopping malls and homes.
“What was important was – at each of the February 15 events parents learnt about the early warning signs and what to look out for. Early detection is vital in stopping the disease from doing damage,” she said.
Cupcakes of HOPE has set a target of R500 000 and encourages anyone who still wants to help a child to go to the website www.cupcakesofhope.org and sign up to host a Party of Hope and in this way begin to ‘bake a difference’ in the lives of cancer patients.
“There is still time, all of these funds will go towards paying the medical and day to day needs of many patients,” said Cipriano.
This year Cupcakes of HOPE hit the ground running already registering more than 30 newly diagnosed patients. Every month we assist about 100 patients – the youngest is an eight month old baby girl who was diagnosed on the 4th of February with cancer tumours in her eyes. Please become a Cupcake Angel and support our cause, our little cancer warriors don’t deserve to fight this battle alone”, said Cipriano.
Although Cupcakes of HOPE predominantly support families financially with their children’s medical bills, they also love to celebrate special milestones like a child’s last day of chemo treatment. This is exactly what happened last week when 12 year old Sean Adler rang the bell at Clinton Hospital. Last year Sean was initially misdiagnosed with scoliosis before he was diagnosed with Sarcoma on his vertebrae. Sean lost the ability to walk because the cancer tumour disintegrated the vertebrae. Sean had to undergo a back operation in Cape Town and eight weeks of intensive physiotherapy to teach him how to walk again. He completed 14 rounds of chemo in 10 months. Cupcakes of HOPE surprised him with a gift and cupcakes when he finally rang the bell on the 26th Feb 2020. It was a very emotional day for everyone attending and the highlight was seeing Sean walk out of the hospital on his own again. He is super excited as he will be going to go back to school this month.
