Sunday, February 02, 2014

The Kranz Family Plea



Pediatric cancer...such a horrible combination of words. It's easy enough to shudder and then turn your attention elsewhere, until you know the child involved. And then you can't stop thinking about it and being angry and in despair and knowing lives are being inextricably changed somewhere in the world. You may be lucky and be unscathed, but you can support those who are facing the hardest reality there is.

Jennifer Kranz is six years old, fighting a DIPG tumor, and things are progressing quickly. Wildly quickly. Her dad is going to stop working so he can spend the last time possible with her. Can you please help in two ways?

1. If it is possibly financially for you--even for a very small token amount--think about how tip jars slowly fill and make employees happy at the end of the shift--it doesn't have to be a huge donation--please give something to this family to help the dad stay home with his family for these last precious moments together. www.love4jlk.org.

2. Use social media and share the JONES out of this video. It of Jennifer's mom Libby asking President Obama to change the division of funds for cancer research. She's not asking for more funding--she's just asking for the pie to be more fairly divided. Because--can you believe this? Pediatric cancer only gets four percent of cancer research funds in this country. Four percent. Four percent goes to the most devastating kind of cancer there is. Share the video on Facebook, put it on your blog, tweet it and retweet it and make it go viral. The Kranz Family knows their fight is ending soon, but they want other families to have a better outcome.



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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for sharing this. The Kranz family is amazing to fight for others even during the precious little time they have left with JLK.

Anonymous said...

Erika: I am Jennifer's grandmother/Libby's mom and just happened upon this. Thanks so much. I used to enjoy reading your column in the Gilroy paper and am so glad that you are using your writing gift to pass on Jennifer's story. Mary Scharrenberg

Erika M said...

Mary, I send my deepest, most heartfelt and agonized sympathy to you. Jennifer was unforgettable. May she rest in peace, sweet, dear child.