Standish Students Donate

Students in Gayle Carpenter’s George E. Jack fifth grade class chose to take up a donation for the Barbara Bush center rather than exchange gifts among themselves for the Christmas holiday. $550.00 was collected and presented to the Maine Children's Cancer Program at the Maine Medical Barbara Bush Hospital. $430.26 was collected by the students and $120.00 presented in School Principal Virginia Day's name, which was money was collected from the staff of G.E. Jack for a total of $550.00. The kids actually collected a total of $680 but as there was a needy family at GEJ also so the class decided that they would like to give $250 of the money to the Standish needy family.

The Maine Children's Cancer Program (MCCP), offers outpatient consultation and treatment of children diagnosed with cancer and blood disorders. Development Director, Jim Bouchard said that cancer care is one of the most costly forms of treatment around. When a child is diagnosed with childhood cancer the entire family is effected. They have needs that have to be met, as well as the needs of the child with cancer. Our program is a multi-disciplinary based treatment program that focuses on the entire family. With those needs in mind, the money that is raised to support the Maine Children's Cancer Program is used to fund research based care, charity care, outreach, advocacy, education, psychosocial services, and new program initiatives not covered by insurance and patient fees. The focus of the funds is to support clinical-based research, equipment needs, and the two full-time clinical social workers that provide lifetime support (if the family requests it) to the child with cancer and his/her family. He said, we do not bill the family for these mental health services, so we absorb the cost of whatever portion the families' insurance company will not pay. Thanks to the support of our sponsors we can say that 100% of the funds that are raised by individual impact the children and their families today.