National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month

September is the month when the weather finally starts to feel like fall to many people, but it is also much more than that: September is National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

According to Childhoodcancer.org, 15,780 children in the United States are diagnosed with some kind of childhood cancer, and a quarter of them will not survive. Iowa State Love Your Melon Campus Crew is doing their part to help families affected by pediatric cancer. This includes holding events with the families, taking local children with pediatric cancer on “super hero adventures,” and creating awareness of Love Your Melon and their products. With every Love Your Melon purchase, portions of their sales go to causes that support pediatric cancer research.

“Love Your Melon is so much more than a hat,” Iowa State Love Your Melon President, Seana Perkins says.

Love your Melon beanies are popular on campus, but many people do not know what Love Your Melon does outside of selling products. “Many people don’t know that we do so much with local families who have a child who has or was diagnosed with some form of cancer,” Perkins said.

Iowa State Love Your Melon currently has five local families that they regularly spend time with. These children are known as “superheroes” in Love Your Melon language, and each have different forms of cancer or diseases. One of their superheroes, Nora, is two years old and was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) shortly after her second birthday.

In late April, Nora’s parents, Jeff and Lily Scott, started noticing some concerning symptoms such as achy, pale in color and a rash of thin red dots under her skin. They took her to the doctor and that is where they heard the “c word: cancer.”

Nora gets chemotherapy every four weeks now and will continue treatment into September 2019.

This is not something easy to endure, but according to the Scotts, Nora continues to “handle her treatment like a champ, she still amazes us regularly, and it’s a continuous question to each other, “What’s next? What hurdle will she clear, what will she surpass?”

We are so proud of Nora and how she handles everything like a champ!

The Iowa State Love Your Melon Campus Crew is so thankful for our superheroes like Nora and for all that they inspire us to do!