Kids with Cancer Get Research Grant in Long Beach

Hyundai Hope on Wheels and local dealerships awarded the Jonathan Jaques Children’s Cancer Center (JJCCC) at Miller Children’s Hospital Long Beach with a $100,000 Hope Grant to help create equal access to pediatric oncology research trials and medical services for non-English speaking patients. Long Beach's JJCCC is one of 71 recipients of Hyundai Hope on Wheels’ 2011 Hope Grant program, where $7.1 million will be awarded to support research and programs in honor of National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

The $100,000 Hope Grant to JJCCC was officially presented during a ceremony at Miller Children’s on Monday, Sept. 19, where Long Beach-area children battling cancer placed their colorful handprints on a canvas to represent their personal triumph.

“When a family and child are dealing with a disease as serious as cancer, it’s critically important that language barriers do not stand in the way of supplying them with the support and resources they need to benefit from childhood cancer research efforts,” said Sandra Sherman-Bien, PhD, research psychologist at the Jonathan Jaques Children’s Cancer Center at Miller Children’s Hospital Long Beach.

“At the Jonathan Jaques Children’s Cancer Center, approximately one quarter of the new patients we see each year have families that speak very little English," she stated in a press release posted Tuesday by Hyundai.