Mattie Miracle Walk 2023 was a $131,249 success!

Mattie Miracle Cancer Foundation Promotional Video

Thank you for keeping Mattie's memory alive!

Dear Mattie Blog Readers,

It means a great deal to us that you take the time to write to us and to share your thoughts, feelings, and reflections on Mattie's battle and death. Your messages are very meaningful to us and help support us through very challenging times. To you we are forever grateful. As my readers know, I promised to write the blog for a year after Mattie's death, which would mean that I could technically stop writing on September 9, 2010. However, at the moment, I feel like our journey with grief still needs to be processed and fortunately I have a willing support network still committed to reading. Therefore, the blog continues on. If I should find the need to stop writing, I assure you I will give you advanced notice. In the mean time, thank you for reading, thank you for having the courage to share this journey with us, and most importantly thank you for keeping Mattie's memory alive.


As Mattie would say, Ooga Booga (meaning, I LOVE YOU)! Vicki and Peter



The Mattie Miracle Cancer Foundation celebrates its 7th anniversary!

The Mattie Miracle Cancer Foundation was created in the honor of Mattie.

We are a 501(c)(3) Public Charity. We are dedicated to increasing childhood cancer awareness, education, advocacy, research and psychosocial support services to children, their families and medical personnel. Children and their families will be supported throughout the cancer treatment journey, to ensure access to quality psychosocial and mental health care, and to enable children to cope with cancer so they can lead happy and productive lives. Please visit the website at: www.mattiemiracle.com and take some time to explore the site.

We have only gotten this far because of people like yourself, who have supported us through thick and thin. So thank you for your continued support and caring, and remember:

.... Let's Make the Miracle Happen and Stomp Out Childhood Cancer!

A Remembrance Video of Mattie

May 24, 2017

Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Tonight's picture was taken in June of 2009, literally in the pre-op room before Mattie's sternotomy. If you look closely we taped a sign to Mattie's gown which read, "Dr. Chahine, give us a Mattie Miracle." Dr. Chahine was the surgeon who was performing Mattie's lung surgery. It was a tough morning for us and all of us were very anxious. 

Quote of the day: You may not have saved a lot of money in your life, but if you have saved a lot of heartaches for other folks, you are a pretty rich man. ~ Seth Parker



I have begun to go through hundreds of photos from this year's Walk. I love this one on the track, right before the Walk officially began. We had around 400 attendees this year! As of tonight we have raised $87,000 from the Walk!






Peter and I always say a few words before the event begins. Peter thanked our corporate and individual sponsors who donated in total over $30,000 to the Foundation and Peter discussed the mission of the Foundation.

I then said a few words about our financial goal for the Walk ($80,000), and how much money we raised as of the day of the Walk ($77,000). I then announced our award winners..........

  • Top Adult Fundraiser: Peggy Elkind (over $5,000)
  • Top Teen Fundraiser: Ryan Goldstein (over $3,000)
  • Top Team Fundraiser: RCC and Friends (over $8,000)
  • Team with the Most Registered Participants: Blessed Sacrament Bullfrogs
  • Team Spirit Award: Team SAINTS


I then shared with our attendees the two major things we learned from Mattie's battle with cancer, and how this guides our work and mission. First, we learned that childhood cancer is NOT just about the medicine. Which is why we fund a child life professional at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, provide free snack carts to families caring for children at two local hospitals, and have been leading the charge (through the development of psychosocial standards of care) for the inclusion of psychosocial care as part of comprehensive cancer care.   
The second guiding principle is that the psychosocial issues do not end when the treatment does. We felt the best way to visually show this was through our Faces of Hope posters, which feature the faces of survivors, and then new this year, our Forever Heroes posters. Our Forever Heroes posters feature the faces of children who lost their battle with cancer. The message we were trying to convey to the observer was that cancer treatment leaves survivors with long term psychosocial consequences and that losing a child to cancer, results in a host of life long psychosocial issues for the families left behind. 



The energy and enthusiasm of our walkers. 













Quite a crowd!













Walkers passed by our Faces of Hope (survivors of childhood cancer) posters. Each of the posters feature a child's face, name, cancer diagnosis, age, and fun facts about him/her. 







1 comment:

Margy Jost said...

Vicki, I listened attentively to you & Peter as you spoke before we all started walking. We were in the middle of the crowd and could really hear you well. Usually, in a crowd that large with a microphone, you still can't hear the speaker but people were listening. When you started talking about what you & Peter learned during Mattie's battle, you could have heard a pin drop in our little area.
Team Kimber is comprised of a group that believes strongly in Psychosocial support or is in need of it from Cancer loss.
While I wish Team Kimber was a larger group, all the people involved right down to,SADIE MAE & CAROLINE understood the significance of the day.
Thank you Peter & Vicki