HMP celebrated Halloween a bit early this year. It was an opportunity for the neighborhood to show support for one of our own. Brett Edstene and his wife, Candace Gwaltney, wanted to give their critically ill 5-year old daughter, Aurelia, a Halloween party a little early this year. Aurelia has been battling brain cancer for several years and since Halloween is her favorite holiday, her parents thought it would be a great way to offer her joy in an otherwise difficult time.
Once Brett made the request, HMP kicked into full gear. About 30 households volunteered to decorate their homes and pass out candy. Approximately 200 children defied the oppressive heat, donned their Halloween costumes, and went trick or treating. But the celebration did not end there. Neighbors Alisha Valentine, Allie Reeves, and Ryan Elfrich spearheaded a Halloween-themed cookout in the HMP Pocket Park. Children and families played games and shared in treats and helped make Aurelia’s Halloween party the best she’s ever experienced.
What makes HMP special are the people and their love and concern for each other. A group of people that rally around a neighbor in need and pay tribute to a sweet little girl by throwing her a party of a lifetime.
Quick Childhood Cancer Facts
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Treatments:
- Leukemia is no longer the deadliest childhood cancer in the U.S.; the top spot now belongs to brain cancer.
- Leukemia and brain combined account for slightly more than half of all cancer deaths among Americans between the ages of 1 and 19 in 2014, the most recent year for which statistics are available.
- Approximately 30% of the estimated 1,960 childhood cancer deaths that year were due to brain cancer and 25% were the result of leukemia.
- Approximately 10% were due to bone and articular cartilage cancers, 9% to thyroid and other endocrine gland cancers, and 8% to mesothelial and soft tissue cancers.
- Combined, these five cancers accounted for more than four out of five cancer deaths among children and adolescents.
- Boys were more vulnerable to cancer than girls with death rates that were 10% to 30% higher throughout the 15-year period. In 2014, 2.57 out of every 100,000 boys and young men died of cancer, compared with 1.98 out of every 100,000 girls and young women, according to the report.
- The cancer death rate was higher for older teens – 2.9 deaths per 100,000 adolescents between the ages of 15 and 19 – than for any other age group. The death rates for all other age groups ranged between 2.01 and 2.12 deaths per 100,000 kids, though those differences weren’t large enough to be statistically significant.
- The cancer death rate declined for all age groups between 1999 and 2014.
- It also fell for black and white children and teens. In 1999, 3.01 out of every 100,000 black kids and 2.85 of every 100,000 white kids died of some kind of cancer; in 2014, those figures were 2.32 and 2.36, respectively. The difference between the two racial groups was not statistically significant.
- In the U.S., accidents and unintentional injuries are the leading cause of death for all kids and teens between the ages of 1 and 19, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Cancer ranks second for children ages 5 to 9, third for kids ages 10 to 14, and fourth for all other youth age groups.