About ADLCA
Tragedy defined hope for us in a way we never thought possible until we lost our beautiful two year-old daughter, Alexa, to brain cancer. Not knowing where else to put our grief, we decided to figure out a way to help support families in financial need who are experiencing the final months of their own child's life. The Alexa Dyer Life Challenge Award was born from a small question in a hospital chapel and has now grown into adolescence in a way we know our daughter, Alexa, never will.
Our journey began on Christmas Eve, 1999, when Alexa was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor. It was impossible to grasp that our spirited child with amazing blue eyes could be taken from us. We couldn't accept that fate and we refused to believe we could lose her. After surgery and months of treatments and hospitalizations, we knew we had to accept that Alexa would not be with us much longer. Nine months after she was diagnosed, we were feeling especially low while again in the hospital with Alexa (which seemed to be our home more than our residence). A friend of our family asked us in the hospital chapel, “Is there any good that can come from this?” My wife and I immediately responded with the same thought. We could try to help other families going through the same thing we were. On that day, the idea of the Alexa Dyer Life Challenge Award was born. And in our grief, a little bit of hope was born as well. And even though we fought to keep her with us and Alexa fought to stay, our beautiful girl died on February 7, 2001, in my wife's arms at home. We miss her so much. We do believe we will get a chance to raise her when we are reunited again some day. But since we cannot raise her now, our job instead is to raise awareness about the needs of other families who are still in the middle of losing their child.
People are usually poignantly aware of the emotional drain on a family whose child is dying. But we realized early on that few people think about the financial drain when life stops, jobs get put on hold, and all that matters is the precious time left with the dying child. That's where the Alexa Dyer Life Challenge Award comes in. To our knowledge, no other program exists like it in the country. We want to get the word out to other cities to support families whose emotions and finances are drained during such a painful time. We help local families whose finances are in peril because of the time they're spending with their dying child. The application process amounts to a one-page form that a social worker completes via the internet on behalf of a family in need. A social worker recently sent in the following request:
Lisa is an eight year-old beautiful girl who was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor called diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma in March 2005. The tumor is an aggressive, inoperable brain tumor of the brain stem.
Her health has most recently deteriorated and she has been in what the MD's refer to as a “vegetative state” for the past several months. Her family spends the day with her, holding her and providing comfort and care.
Lisa is the only child of Betty. John is Lisa's stepfather. They operate a crane company in the Portland area. Since her diagnosis, they have not paid themselves for the work at their company. Since the business has not made a profit since her illness, due to their need to care for Lisa, the family has been living from their savings and investments. These are now all spent down and the family has no financial resources left. They are struggling with their bills and need assistance with their basic living expenses…I would like to request that their mortgage payment be made…for this family. This would help immensely.
We have helped over 50 families like this one and can normally can provide financial relief within a week. The Foundation is completely run by volunteers and 100% of the donations go to families by making payments directly to a mortgage company, utilities, or other debtors. We are receiving more requests than ever and those requests are exceeding our budget. We want to be able to give away at least $100,000 a year. To do so, we want to create an endowment of at least $2 million and also raise awareness so other cities can create programs to support families locally.
To raise more money, we also started an initiative last January called the “Lose It Challenge.” Participants register on the website ( www.loseitchallenge.org ) and commit to an amount of weight they want to lose. They then email friends and family anywhere in the world to make a pledge in support of their weight loss effort. The first “Lose It Challenge” went for 12 weeks and raised approximately $80,000 for the Alexa Dyer Life Challenge. Many people have lost a lot of weight for a great cause.
The next phase of the Lose It Challenge will start this May. Nautilus, the exercise equipment company, is getting on board. They are creating a Corporate Lose It Challenge to coincide with the individual one.
We do believe that what we are doing is making a great difference in the community. Having such hope from such a tough personal tragedy is truly a gift. We are also happy to note that we now have adopted two daughters from Belarus to join the family and Alexa's big brother, Austin.
Names have been changed for privacy.
