Rallying with Ryder

This past year at Rallying with Ryder we have been able to directly help 42 families. We have provided the funds for childcare, travel expenses, utility and mortgage payments, and we even got to facilitate and help fund bringing some family members together. We’ve also been able to donate toys and hampers directly to the Peds oncology unit and specific families. The majority of our funding goes to helping with essentials like groceries and gas. Lots of families are down t...o one income, and sometimes no income, so that they can be their working to get their babies healthy again. We love that we can help take some of the worry about whether a family can afford to eat or not off the long list of stressors. Like all charities and businesses, RWR has struggled with covid in the world. We had an amazing fundraiser planned for June which we had to postpone until crowd size rules increase. In the meantime, our account has run dry. Having to tell the social workers and families no, we can’t help is killing us. We are working to come up with some new fundraising ideas that follow the AHS covid guidelines. Unfortunately, cancer doesn’t care about covid and parents are still hearing the words I’m sorry, your child has cancer. As a family we have never been good at asking for help, but we are reaching out now so that we can continue to provide support to our families. We are asking for monetary donations and grocery and/or gas gift cards. Donations can be made 3 ways: 1. Go to our webpage www.rallyingwithryder.ca and hit donate 2. Go to www.canadahelps.org and search Rallying with Ryder 3. Contact us directly at 780-901-3360 or by email at [email protected] You will be provided a tax receipt for $$ donations with any of those options. Also, we are open to hearing any ideas for fundraisers you can contact us via FB or email Thank you to all our followers and please share our page and website.

February 4th, 2020 World Cancer Day I HOPE I hope you never have to hear the words, ‘Your child has cancer.’... I hope you never have to hear, ‘The prognosis is not good.’ I hope you never have to prepare your child to undergo radiation or chemotherapy, have a port surgically inserted into their chest, be connected to IV poles. I hope you never have your child look at you with fear in their eyes and say, ‘Don’t worry Mommy, everything will be okay.’ I hope you never have to hold your child as they vomit green bile. I hope you never have to feed them ice chips for lunch. I hope you never have to watch the ‘cure’ you pray for slowly take away their identity, as they lose their hair, become skeletal, swell up from steroids, develop severe acne, become barely or unable to walk or move, and look at you with hope in their eyes and say, ‘It’s going to be okay, Mommy.’ I hope that you never have to stay in the hospital for weeks, months, or years at a time, where there is no privacy, sleeping on a slab, with your face to the wall, where you cry in muffled silence. I hope you never have to see a mother, alone, huddled, in a dark hospital corridorcrying quietly, after just being told, ‘There is nothing more we can do.’ I hope you never have to watch a family wander aimlessly, minutes after their child’s body has been removed. I hope you never have to use every bit of energy you have left, with all of this going on around you to remain positive, and the feelings of guilt, sorrow, hope and fear, overwhelm you. I hope you never have to see a child’s head bolted to the table as they receive radiation. I hope you never have to take your child home (grateful but so afraid) in a wheelchair because the chemo and radiation has damaged their muscles, 35 pounds lighter, pale, bald, and scarred. And they look at you with faith in their eyes and say, ‘It’s going to be okay Mommy.’ I hope you never have to face the few friends that have stuck beside you and hear them say, ‘Thank God that is over with,’because you know it never will be. Your life becomes a whirl of doctors, blood tests and MRI’s and you try to get your life back to ‘normal’. While living in mind-numbing fear that any one of those tests could result in hearing the dreaded words ‘The cancer has returned’ or ‘The tumor is growing.’ And your friends become even fewer. I hope you never have to experience any of these thingsBecauseonly then Will you understand (author unknown)

This post is long overdue but we’ve been dealing with some family issues the past few months. Despite the late shout out, RWR is very grateful to the We Care program at Greystone Centennial Middle School. Thank you to all the students & teachers & families for supporting our apparel drive back in May/June. An extra big thanks to Patty Nicholls for choosing to show support to our charity. They raised an amazing $1502.00 to help support kids and their families going through cancer treatment. Since this is a late post, I can tell you all that your generosity helped financially support three separate families with what they needed at the time. Thank you, thank you, thank you!! Without support from our community, RWR wouldn’t be able to do what we love to do. #wecare