Cancer Today - Fall 2018

In 2015, Jenny Yessaian’s children, Mikey and Emily, begged for her permission to set up a hot chocolate stand outside their elementary school
in San Marino, California. Yessaian and her husband,
George, suggested they donate the proceeds to a
cause. Mikey and Emily, now 12 and 11, respectively,
decided they wanted to give care packages to kids
whose parents had cancer, and Help with Hope was born.

GET involved

HOW YOU CAN VOLUNTEER

These organizations also offer support to kids
and teens whose parents have cancer:
• Kids Konnected runs support
groups and camps for kids dealing
with a parent’s cancer diagnosis.

kidskonnected.org

• Lacuna Loft provides online support programs for teens and young adults caring for a relative with cancer.

lacunaloft.org
HELPING
KIDS COPE

Do you know an extraordinary person who’s giving his or her time to the cancer cause?

Email Volunteer@Cancer TodayMag.org.

We may feature the person in a future issue.

PHOTO BY FRANCES TANG

Jenny Yessaian

THE PATH AHEAD

A parent’s cancer diagnosis can begin a scary period in a child’s life, says Yessaian, a senior product manager at Novartis Oncology. Kids may have a difficult time adjusting to changes in routine or may struggle to understand why Mom or Dad looks or acts differently or needs to spend time in a hospital. Through her work at Novartis and the time she spent as a nurse in a pediatric oncology unit, Yessaian noticed that there weren’t a lot of resources to help kids cope with the stress of having a sick parent. “We discussed this huge, unmet need, and as a family we decided to do something about it,” she says.

The Yessaians’ initial goal was to raise
enough money for 100 care packages
in their first year. They prepared and
distributed these packages themselves,
giving them to kids whose parents were
being treated at the nearby USC Norris
Comprehensive Cancer Center in
Los Angeles and other cancer centers
in the area. Each care package contains
a stuffed animal, an age-appropriate
book walking the child through having a
parent who has cancer, and either a col-
oring packet (for young kids) or a journal
(for older kids).

Corporate sponsorships and community partnerships allow the Yessaians’ organization to keep on giving. “It costs over $500 to ship 35 care packages,” says Yessaian.

Help with Hope ( helpwithhope.org) has distributed more than 1,000 care packages to kids around the world. But Mikey and Emily have an even loftier goal: to help every single kid whose parent has cancer. Yessaian says that Help with Hope has been a great learning experience for the entire family, reinforcing for her kids “the importance of being the change you wish to see in the world.”

—LINDSE Y KONKEL

The National Cancer Institute has produced a publication called When Your Parent Has Cancer that aims to guide young people through all aspects of a parent’s cancer diagnosis.