West Coast Kids Cancer Foundation (WCK) is a charitable organization founded in 2017 by a passionate team of people who had been involved with the childhood cancer community for many years and passionately agreed that the families navigating through it all deserved more.
Since then, WCK has provided practical support to families experiencing childhood cancer and blood disorders through food programs, online hangouts, city camp, peer support, and port shirts.
2023 has seen incredible successes for WCK in several of its programs.
The WCK City Camp is a day camp hosted in the Surrey School District, in which children can attend camp while their complex medical needs are still being met. This year, the camp hosted 53 campers aged 5 – 12, where kids participated in Lego building, arts and crafts, learning labs, theatre, mindfulness mat time, outdoor play, and more. There are two registered nurses, along with trained staff and volunteers, to ensure the kids are well looked after.
With the success of the program, WCK is looking into expanding transportation to and from camp to remove as many barriers as possible to children attending the camp in the coming years.
Another program that has seen significant growth this year is the WCK food support program. As of June 2023, the program has delivered over 12,000 units of food to families in and out of the hospital. Last year was a record-breaking year for the program, closing out the year with 14,000 units of food delivered. The program ensures that families eat good quality food that meets dietary needs and that the needs of families in hospital are met.
Lastly, the port shirt program was the brainchild of a young boy, Cameron, who was a patient on the oncology floor at BCCH. The shirts are outfitted with a zipper to easily access a port and eliminate the need for children to remove their shirts, preserving the child's dignity while receiving care.
This year, Whistle & Flute sponsored the program, donating their overflow stock quarterly. The shirts are then outfitted by a team of volunteers and shipped to homes across the province completely free of charge.
MT+Co. has been a community partner of WCK since 2020 and is a proud sponsor of the port shirts program.
To learn more about these projects and the other incredible initiatives by WCK, visit their website here: https://wckfoundation.ca/
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