Here’s a Team Summer first! Three, count them, three Team Summer kids nominated the same kid…all within a week of each other!! This kind of outpouring is what Summer Dale, the founder of Team Summer, was talking about when she said her dream was that no child with cancer ever feel alone. Talk about being on it, kids!! YAY!
The subject of all this attention was 10-year-old Ian. Before cancer, he was living the life…traveling with his team as a star baseball player. A pretty cool dude!
Right before Christmas last year, Ian started to have stomach pains. On Christmas morning, he woke up feeling fine; so he and his family went off to an indoor water park as planned. But shortly after arriving, Ian’s pain got so bad that his mom took him straight to the emergency room. After some tests, the hospital sent him via ambulance to the children’s hospital. Things were getting scary. And then, later that day, things got even scarier. Ian was diagnosed with cancer: leukemia.
For Ian, this meant surgeries, hospital stays, and chemotherapy every week for nine months. Nine months is an eternity when you are a kid on the go. And the hardest part for Ian was that his fun baseball life had come to an abrupt halt.
Enter his Team Summer posse!
Bria was fighting neuroblastoma until this past June, and Benny and Talia are battling leukemia, just like Ian. All three know how hard it is to be snatched away from things you love. So they came up with a plan to bring Ian’s baseball life to him! While Ian was on the Zoom call with his new Team Summer friends, a HUGE surprise for him was set up in his backyard – his own personal batting cage and electronic ball pitcher!!
Just like that, Ian was back at bat! Way to go Bria, Benny, and Talia!
Welcome to Team Summer, Ian. We know you are going to knock cancer out of the ballpark!
Can you make a donation to Team Summer? All our gifts are funded by people like you!
*Team Summer, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. All contributions are tax deductible to the full extent of the law.
