Bryannas Love Inc

Causes: Cancer

Mission: • Bryanna’s Love offers comfort and support to families whose child is facing a cancer diagnosis and are undergoing treatment in a hospital setting. We will do this primarily by providing children battling cancer on the oncology units a soft stuffed animal to snuggle, and a blanket to cuddle. In addition, we will offer their families a cozy blanket for comfort as they encourage their child every day. All stuffed animals and blankets are collected through our Give Kids A Snuggle Campaign whereby generous people purchase the new items and donate them to us. We then donate each and every received item to the children and their families at the hospital. For this program, we can only accept new items with tags or in the original packaging due to the severity of the children’s illness. • Bryanna’s Love will offer Our Sibling Love program focuses on the individual sibling of a cancer patient by providing a unique experience, activity or item specific to each sibling. This program is unique in that we recognize the struggles that the siblings endure as they often don’t see their siblings for extended period of times while admitted to the hospital undergoing treatment. The sibling also often times has to stay with extended family and sometimes family friends while their parents are at the hospital during their sister or brother’s extensive cancer treatment. Often times, the siblings start to feel left out because most foundations inundate the patient with fun experiences and items to help them through their difficult cancer treatment, but do not offer any of that to the sibling. This often leads to resentment towards their sibling with cancer, resentment towards the parents, loss of motivation in school, worsening grades, loss of self-esteem all of which jeopardizes their social, emotional, academic and physical well-being. Through this program, Bryanna’s Love engages with the family to see exactly what the individual sibling is wanting to do or have that will be unique to them. By doing so, the sibling are able to see that they matter just as much and that they also can get excited when they are able to make new core memories with their friends, their parents or on their own doing what they want to do, compliments of our Sibling Love Program. This program is not limited to siblings whose sister or brother is in active treatment, but also includes siblings of patients who are in remission but still requires treatment or follow up care, and also include bereaved siblings as their loss is larger and less mentioned by those around them. We want the siblings to know that they too matter, and that their parents are there for them. - Bryanna's Love supports families through our Home To Care Program whereby we facilitate through partnerships with other foundations, the travel and lodging from their home to a clinical trial or critical treatment needed to help the child battle childhood cancer.