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Bringing LIGHT to the Darkness of Cancer

We Need Your Help!

July 7, 2017


Cancer stinks. My family will never be the same after my Uncle Tommy passed from Pancreatic cancer. His loss is still reverberating through my family today.  It is all around us and affects everyone. 


In honor of Athena Giassakis, Long Island’s 2017 Girl of the Year, Huntington Macaroni Kid is participating in the 2017 Light The Night and Executive Challenge 

In 2012 Athena had just mastered her first steps at 18 months old when all of a sudden she stopped walking. On May 25th she was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia and her family’s life changed drastically. Athena received intense treatment and had a medi-port placed in her body surgically. Needles, chemotherapy, surgeries and medication became her new normal. This was the beginning of a journey that would require many hospital stays over the next two and a half years for Athena and her family.

Today, Athena is six years old, cancer-free, and living life to the fullest! Play dates and tea parties are now what take up her time, and she could not be happier. 


We are honored to share that I am participating in the 2017 Light The Night Walk benefiting The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS), Long Island Chapter. Light The Night is LLS’s annual fundraising event held each fall to find cures and provide access to treatments for blood cancer patients. Friends, families and co-workers gather together to celebrate, honor, or remember those touched by cancer.  Our goal is to raise $5,000.

Did you know that more than 1.2 million Americans are living with, or are in remission from a blood cancer? LLS is the world’s largest voluntary health organization dedicated to funding blood cancer research, providing education, patient services and advocating for patient access to new therapies. LLS offers a variety of programs and services to patients and their families in support of its mission: Cure leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease and myeloma, and improve the quality of life of patients and their families. These programs include:

  • Investing more than $1 billion in research since 1949 ($49.3 million invested last year alone)
  • Assisting patients through support groups and two different types of financial aid, and
  • Advocating for legislation in the best interest of blood cancer patients.

Despite advances in survival rates, more than one third of blood cancer patients still do not survive five years after diagnosis. Further funding is needed to advance research and ensure access to treatments to help save more lives.

Please consider helping me bring LIGHT to the darkness of cancer. 

Visit http://pages.lightthenight.org/li/Eisenhow17/tmorris to make a donation

Interested in learning more about Light The Night? Visit http://www.lightthenight.org/long-island or call 631-370-7540. Please share a memory or tribute of anyone who has been affected by cancer in the comments below.