Mariana Ramos
For the past four years, Frank Squeo has been surprising kids battling life-threatening illnesses with dream vacations. Frank is a Testicular Cancer Survivor, who wanted to give back to other cancer patients, and there was born Baking Memories 4 Kids.
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Baking Memories 4 Kids uses the proceeds from their sales of cookies to send children with cancer to a Florida theme park of their choice, like Disney, Universal Studios, or Sea World.
“We bake cookies in New York with volunteers, and we sell them between now and Christmas. If we sell them, the kids go,” said Frank Squeo.
Most of these children are facing cancer that will most likely take their lives, but Frank and Baking Memories 4 Kids are giving them hope and a time to spend quality time with their family. One of the recent winners is 12 year old Aoife Gallagher.
Aoife is battling leukodystrophy, a disorder affecting the white matter of the brain, which impacts movement, speech, vision, hearing and mental and physical development. The disease is fatal.
When she was given the news Wednesday that she was going to “Disney World, Sea World, Lego Land, every amusement park,” she couldn’t contain her excitement. The Gallagher family is the first family from Chicago to be honored by the charity.
Frank, along with the Chicago Fire Department, pulled up to the Gallagher house in a fire truck and surprised Aoife and her 9-year-old brother Fionn. Frank was inside, accompanied by a giant Mickey Mouse doll and a huge smile
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“It is so rare that is only about 250 people in the world and currently there is no treatment or cure. We can make new memories together and remember her always” mom Margaret Gallagher said.
The family will head to Florida at the beginning of the year for a week.
