On Monday, it was announced that the Anthony Rizzo Family Foundation was making a $3.5 million donation to Lurie Children’s Hospital, and patients and staff at the hospital were deeply touched by the announcement.
The money will go toward setting up a pair of endowment funds, with one going toward providing grants to families struggling with expenses related to their children’s cancer care, and one paying for a pair of oncology specialists whose job it will be to help work with kids as they make their way through the process of fighting the disease.
“It’s a wonderful donation. It will fund my position for the foreseeable future,” Sara Stewart, one of the oncologists whose work will be funded by the Foundation, said. “It will also provide families with the relief of a mortgage payment, or parking, or copays. It (eliminates) those financial stressors where the family just wants to be focusing on their child.”
Paying those types of bills is what Rizzo’s foundation was created to achieve. To date, the foundation has donated over $75,000 to the hospital before the endowments, and the impact of that money has been seen by patients and their families.
“I see the families, both in-patient and in the infusion center, and I don’t think people realize just how much of an impact this makes,” Ryanne Hugins, mother of Lurie patient Ethan Hugins, said. “Just driving in and out of the city, parking every day, they’re little things, but they add up. For a lot of families, they have to make a decision whether to pay one bill or for their child to get treatment. This grant helps families alleviate some of those concerns.”
While the funding to help pay for expenses while children are undergoing treatment is well-appreciated by those that need it, the two oncology specialists that will be funded by the “Anthony Rizzo Family Foundation Child Life Endowed Fund” also make life at the hospital a lot more positive experience for the children and their families.
“The part of the grant going to the child life specialists is great,” Hugins said. “Those two women make the stay. It’s not just Ethan. They help the whole family, and the fact that the foundation is recognizing that is really wonderful.”
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Rizzo has helped make life better for patients at the hospital by making frequent visits as well, and Stewart praised the first baseman for taking time out of his schedule to visit with children and their families.
“He is wonderful when he comes here,” she said. “He interacts with the patients so beautifully. They light up when he walks in the room. He just helps them to feel like a normal child through all of this. It’s awesome to see.”
Rizzo fought his own battle against cancer, getting diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2008. The first baseman, then with the Boston Red Sox organization, ultimately beat the disease, and he has dedicated considerable resources to fighting cancer and helping patients and families deal with the expenses since he began the foundation in 2012.
