Firefighters Battle It Out to Help Kids Fight Cancer

This Saturday was a little out of the ordinary for the over 100 Chicago area firefighters who descended on Saint Xavier University.

Instead of riding in fire engines with sirens blaring and rushing to attach hoses to fire hydrants, they competed in an obstacle course, battled on an inflatable jousting platform, used all their muscles in a game of tug-of-war, pulled a fire truck across a parking lot, busted through doors and competitively ate hot wings from Buffalo Wild Wings.

At the end of the day, the Palos Fire District had the highest number of points, but fighters of pediatric cancer were the true winners.

It was all part of the Cure It Foundation’s second annual Fire Up A Cure, an event to raise money for pediatric cancer research and support families of children battling cancer.

“The feeling of love and support is really heartwarming,” said Jen Amelio. She is the mother of Luke, 6, a Mount Greenwood resident, who has leukemia. Luke was the honorary team captain of Super Luke’s CFD Sidekicks.

Each six-member team had an honorary captain who was fighting or had beaten pediatric cancer or was a sibling of a cancer patient. The captains cheered on their teams throughout the day's events. 

As a firefighter dragged a 150 pound dummy across the gymnasium during the obstacle course, he glanced at his team captain as she enthusiastically cheered him on and shouted to her, “This is all for you!”

Team captains ranged from 18-month-olds to 12-year-olds, according to Dr. Jason Canner, a pediatric oncologist at Advocate Hope Children’s Hospital and Central DuPage Hospital and co-founder of the Cure It Foundation.

“It’s amazing. This event was a dream of mine for five years,” Canner said as he looked around at the crowd. “I’m almost speechless . . . the South Side is so giving; it’s the perfect place to have this.”

Canner started the Cure It Foundation in 2011. “Our goal is to continue to bring the community together to raise awareness for the kids, for pediatric cancer, for the Cure It Foundation,” he said. “The best part of this is seeing all these kids out of the hospital.”

One of those kids is Emily Beazley, a ten-year-old patient of Canner’s who captained the Axmen. She was diagnosed in 2011 with stage three t-cell lymphoblastic non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and recently completed her treatment at Advocate Hope Children’s Hospital.

Her favorite part of the fundraiser was “all the stuff for the kids to do,” she said. Activities besides the firefighters’ competition ranged from tennis lessons and face painting to Irish dancers and a magic show.

According to Emily’s mom Nadia Beazley, at last year’s event Emily and her best friend, who was also battling cancer, spent the whole time singing karaoke together. “It was the last time they had a good time together before [the friend] died” from her cancer, Nadia said.

In addition to providing a fun day for patients and their families, the event raised almost $30,000 for the Cure It Foundation, Canner said.

“Each team has blown us away” with their fundraising efforts, said Becky Vacco-Guidice, the foundation’s director of public relations and marketing. “Part of the money goes to research. Pediatric cancer is one of those things that’s pretty underfunded,” she said.

Some of the money will be used to support fighters, survivors and siblings of those affected by pediatric cancer. “We don’t want to see kids suffer academically and socially,” Vacco-Giudice said.

She described how the foundation helped a patient keep a part of her pre-cancer life. 

“One little girl, six years old, loved ballet and dance,” Vacco-Giudice said. “Her mom had to stop working and sacrifices had to be made. Dance can help with the side effects of chemotherapy” and so the Cure It Foundation paid for the girl to continue with her dance lessons during treatment.

Fire Up A Cure was “a good way to bring the community together,” Vacco-Giudice said. “Everybody at some point looks up to a firefighter.”