Fueling Research, Feeding Families

Dr. Sara Tasian and Rally Kid Peyton at a RALLY RESEARCH RECEPTION.

Just seven years after giving our very first grant, a $5,000 check given in a driveway, Rally hit a milestone we once only dreamed of: we awarded $1 million in research grants in a single year.

One million dollars.

That moment wasn’t just about a number.  It was about belief. It was about the belief our donors placed in us, the trust they had in our mission, and the hope they shared that better treatments, and one day, cures are possible.

Among the grants that year was one to Dr. Sarah Tasian, a rising star at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. At the very start of her career, she was helping to exploring something bold and unproven: CAR T-cell therapy. That early Rally funding helped support the science that would eventually lead to Kymriah, the first FDA-approved CAR T therapy. Today, Kymriah reprograms a child’s immune system to hunt down and destroy leukemia cells and saving lives that once had no options left.

Rally also funded Dr. Angela Waanders’ work on pediatric glioma, which contributed to a new FDA-approved combination therapy.

We also took part in our very first CureFest in Washington, D.C. It was powerful. Standing shoulder to shoulder with other foundations, families and survivors, we felt what we had always known: that when this community comes together, we are an unstoppable force.

That same year, Cindi Bonner, a Rally volunteer from Pensacola whose neighbor’s child had been diagnosed with cancer, turned passion into action and launched Rally Pensacola extending our reach and deepening our roots.

And quietly, another seed planted years earlier began to grow.

When Dean first visited William in the hospital, his mom, Nancy, asked her to raise money for research. William’s dad, Lee, gave her a different kind of mission. “Feed the families,” he said. “They’re hungry.”

Dean never forgot what Lee said.

Hospitals provide food for the kids but not for the parents who rarely leave their bedside. And the idea that families were fighting hunger on top of cancer. It was devastating. It was wrong. And it had to change.

So, we created the Rally Good Meal program by partnering with local restaurants to bring meals directly to hospital. Since then, we’ve served close to 150,000 meals to families in children’s hospitals across the country.

Because it’s enough that your child is fighting cancer.
You shouldn’t have to fight hunger, too.

This is the power of people.

This is the power of purpose.

This is Rally.