A WOKC Buddy Bag is given to each child admitted to Children’s Medical Center for cancer treatment at both the Dallas and Legacy locations. Over 200 families a year experience the shocking cancer diagnosis and immediate admission to Children’s Medical Center for treatment.  Wipe Out Kids’ Cancer started the Buddy Bag program as a way to reach out to newly diagnosed families as they try to comprehend the cancer diagnosis.   

Each Buddy Bag is filled with personal items and hospital stay necessities to ease the transition from home to hospital for both the child and parents. The idea for the Buddy Bags started with a mom who had been in that situation and knew what would help a family in crisis.  Kyle Freeland was a 2007 WOKC Ambassador, and his mom Lori, helped start the program and is still involved today.  All items in the bags were chosen by moms of kids with cancer, who know better than anyone what items might be needed at that time of crisis. These bags send a message to the children and their families that there are people who care about them at a time when they need to know that the most.

How can you help?

If you would like to help the WOKC Buddy Bag program, we’re always in need of specific items for the bags or funding to sponsor the Buddy Bag program.  Current “Wish List” items include:  books of stamps, note cards, flashlights (with batteries) disposable cameras, journals, pill cutters, and travel size bottles of shampoo, lotion & body wash.  For more information email rmoore@wokc.org