Founder Says 1000 Smiles for Cleyon Provides Hope

Michelle Rudon

Since its inception, one of the seven children that the foundation has been working with has passed. According to founder, Michelle Rudon, while they cannot guarantee life free of cancer to these children, they are providing them with hope and support to improve the quality of their lives.

Michelle Rudon, Founder, 100 Smiles for Cleyon

“As fast as we help one child, you have two more that are sick. I had no idea that there were so many children in Belize suffering from cancer. Right now we have five children that have been with us that we have been helping. We just got two more yesterday so I think we will keep it at maybe eight for a little while because it is a consistent help. These children need chemo every two months; some of them need it twice for the month. So for right now where we are, this is what we are doing. We are hoping that the foundation will grow so that we can help even more children in the future. That’s how it all started basically, to help Cleyon get to Merida. We helped Cleyon and then we realized that we had baby Izak. Baby Izak was only four months old when we met him. After Baby Izak, then we got Mia, then we got Henry. Now we have Aldane, then we have Ashanti and two more that we got yesterday. And what we are trying to do is not an organization—an organization sounds very cold—but what we have built here in the past four months is basically a support family. Where we not only provide financial assistance by raising the funds for the child to obtain he medical treatment, but we are also providing support for the mothers, to the grandmothers, to the fathers because when a child has cancer, the family also suffers along with that child.”

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