CENTRAL VALLEY — The Monroe-Woodbury School District and area businesses showed their backing of Pediatric Cancer Awareness Month last week, by wearing gold — its signature color of awareness — on Thursday, Sept. 12.
District faculty, parents and PTA leadership mobilized to create the awareness day only four days into the school year to show their support of Monroe-Woodbury Middle School student Julianna Edel, who entered hospice care this month after being diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma in September 2012, and others dealing with cancer.
While other Monroe-Woodbury children have been diagnosed with cancer and the community has rallied to support them and their families, Julianna made it clear that her most important wish was to raise awareness about cancer in all children.
So, as her family continued to finalize hospice arrangements, students, faculty and staff in all buildings could be seen wearing gold ribbons and clothing on Sept. 12 to symbolically let her know they were seeking to fulfill her wish.
September has been designated as National Pediatric Cancer Awareness Month.
Julianna’s mother, Tina Edel, has been keeping the community posted on Julianna’s condition on a Facebook page called, “Love, Hope, Faith and Prayers for Julianna.”
“Please know that we appreciate your spreading awareness about childhood cancers and how you have shown love and support to our family,” she wrote.
Julianna returned home this past week, and her family expressed their gratitude for everyone’s help.
“Julianna’s doctors feel that while her heart and lungs are stable, this is an opportunity for all of us to be able to be at home together,” her mother wrote. “When we asked Julianna, she agreed that she would like to go home.”
Tina Edel wrote that when the Make-a-Wish Foundation heard about Julianna’s return to Hackensack Medical Center and contacted the family to see if Julianna would like to have a wish fulfilled, the middle schooler said she didn’t want anything for herself.
“Instead, she stated more than once that she’d like a mural done either at clinic or in a room on the oncology floor that will make the space more inviting and interesting for kids that are there for cancer treatment,” her mother said in her Facebook posting.