Joseph M. Sanzari Children’s Hospital recently celebrated a $100,000 grant from Hyundai Hope on Wheels® with a special Handprint Ceremony outside the Children’s Hospital during Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. After brief remarks, young patients and their families dipped their hands in paint and left handprints on a Hyundai vehicle, symbolizing their fight against cancer.
The generous grant will help provide staffing costs for a Nurse Navigator to support the Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) program at the Children’s Hospital’s Children’s Cancer Institute.
“This is the kind of support that truly makes a difference and gives hope to so many families,” said Burton Appel, M.D., associate director of the Children’s Cancer Institute. “Our AYA program addresses not just the medical needs of these young people, but also their emotional, social and financial challenges. This generous gift from Hyundai Hope on Wheels will be transformative for our AYA program, allowing us to expand our services and reach more young people in need, and we are so grateful for their ongoing support.”
The AYA program, first launched at the Children’s Hospital in 2024 with help from Hyundai Hope on Wheels, treats patients between the ages of 15 and 39 who have received a cancer diagnosis, and is designed to address the survival gap present among patients in this age group. The role of the Nurse Navigator is to focus on the unique needs of AYA patients, families and clinicians by coordinating care and increasing levels of psychosocial support, fertility preservation and clinical trial enrollment.
“For nearly three decades, Hyundai Hope on Wheels has stood shoulder-to-shoulder with young warriors and the scientific champions fighting childhood cancer,” said Jigar Kapadia, Senior Group Manager of Dealer Network Development for the Eastern region at Hyundai Motor America. “Because of their courage and relentless pursuit of answers, more children are beating this disease and getting back to being kids.”
“This commitment to a healthier, more hopeful future is built into every Hyundai vehicle sold — and we see it come to life here at the hospital,” said Andy Shapiro of Jersey City-based Hudson Hyundai.
Likewise, donations made to Tackle Kids Cancer directly benefit the essential clinical care, unique support services and groundbreaking cancer research needed to find a cure at the Children’s Cancer Institute at Joseph M. Sanzari Children’s Hospital.
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