Hailey Steward.. Our daughter Hailey was diagnosed with B-Cell ALL leukemia in Oct. 2012. From that moment, our world and life changed forever. Instead of going to school, hanging out with all her friends doing what kids do, she was going through treatments to save her life. When things got hard, we wanted to do anything to make what our family was going through a little less painful so we started Team Hailey Hugs (Hailey’s Journey Our Journey). We started raising funds for families fighting cancer so we could at least give them some form of relief. We did fundraisers to raise money for refrigerators for all the patients’ rooms at the children’s hospital in Maine.
THH’s followers helped us make a difference to those effected by childhood cancer and our amazing clinic which is the place our kids in Maine are treated for cancer. The Maine Children Cancer Program and all who work there have been our second family and we love what they do and what they stand for. We did fun fundraisers like having people help us purchase hats, toys, pajamas, Ipads we even had treasure chests made for a few ERs in our area and filled them with toys for kids that had to go the the ERs.
Families are always the most important to us alongside bringing awareness to this horrible disease.
In Oct. of 2015, Hailey relapsed and then relapsed again in March of 2017. During her fight with this disease, Hailey never cared for herself more then she did others. She fought hard for all children, she spread love and awareness for all the kids and loved each and everyone like they was hers. Hailey is Team Hailey Hugs. This organization was built on all she wanted to do and the children she wanted to do it for. She was a voice that could pierce your heart with each and every word. We called her “Miss Butterfly”, she had an old soul.
Her last relapse brought her to call every single person out to fight for the kids, help fund research for a cure, and she wanted nothing more then for everyone to GO GOLD. Her famous words are “WE ARE ALL FAMILY” & “GO GOLD JUST DO IT”. She truly believed in those words and lived by them.
In September, THH and all of our FB family helped her dream come true we got 60 towns to do a proclamation declaring September is childhood cancer awareness. We also started our first GO GOLD Event which we celebrate on Labor Day weekend. This event will continue to be on Labor Day weekend for as long as we can. Hailey got to see her dream come true and celebrate at her event that she encouraged us to do for awareness and to bring some fun to the families fighting.
On September 23rd, 2017, my daughter Hailey passed away and I truly believe she made sure it
happened in September so she could guarantee we’d never forget September is the month that we need to GO GOLD JUST DO IT.
I will continue to fight this fight for the families, for funding, and to make sure she and so many others are remembered. Our kids deserve more- they deserve a cure.
