By Eileen Buckley
Buffalo, NY – An 11-year-old girl's spirit lives on one year after her battle with cancer ended. "Carly's Club" is now part of the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation.
Carly Collard Cottone's childhood was filled with tragedy. She lost her parents to cancer. First her father died in 1993 of lung cancer. Then in 1998, her mother died after battling brain cancer.
Chuck Collard and his wife CaroleAnn adopted Carly. But just ten months after her mom passed away, doctors found a tumor at the base of her brain. Collard says it was Carly's idea to start the research fund.
"When we sat down to talk with Carly she said why don't we just do something on our own," Collard said. "I asked her what she would call it and she said Carly's Club. For her to actually think of that idea at the time when she was only eight-and-a- half, to actually reach out and help other kids while going through her battle, she always put other kids first."
Collard says they started the fund as a grassroots effort, but in the last three years they've raised over a half-million dollars for research. Roswell has expanded the program calling it "Carly's Club for Kids and Cancer Research." John Cowel, chair of Roswell's Cancer Genetics Department, says they hope to make Carly's Club can become as large as Boston's Jimmy Fund.
"I think it can compare favorably. The Jimmy Fund has obviously been going for a long time. It has a very extensive network, but I think it is quite rare to have a high concentration of pediatric cancer research in one organization," Cowel said. "I think as momentum gathers and scientific information comes out we can compare very favorably, although obviously it is a much smaller population."
Collard says he continues to share his personal experience through Carly's Club with other families.
"What my wife went through, we saw a lot of things from the inside looking out that normally you would not see from the outside looking in," Collard said. "We have taken some of those lessons that we've learned and related them to hopefully making the experience for patients and families a little bit more manageable."
Last Friday Roswell officially unveiled a new Carly's Club moniker for all pediatric fundraising allowing the girl's legacy to live on in the fight to find a cure for childhood cancer.