By Khalida Sarwari
On any given day, the Great America theme park in Santa Clara has no shortage of heroes. They come in all shapes and sizes, all of them ready to brave a few of the park’s scariest roller coasters like Flight Deck, FireFall and Delirium.
But on Mother’s Day this year, the heroes at Great America could be found wearing silver hats inscribed with the words “Courageous Kids.”
These heroes go by names like P.J. Bryant, Tessa Davis, Sam Steinfeld, Kimberley Nall and Tiffany Gelineau.
P.J., a 9-year-old with a penchant for pizza, cookies, balloons and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, is the very epitome of a hero to his parents.
On Mother’s Day, the pint-sized second-grader was all smiles as he played with balloons in the Picnic Grove. It was a far cry from 6 ½years ago, when P.J. developed a fever at the age of 2 and was subsequently diagnosed with childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia, or ALL, a type of blood cancer. What followed was three years of treatment but a relatively quick recovery made easier by his also having Down Syndrome, according to his parents.
“When I was crying, he’d reach out and tell me, ‘Mom, it’s OK,’ ” said Christina Bryant, who was sporting a red, blue and white wrist corsage that was handed out to every mother as they entered the Picnic Grove.
The Bryants, both landscapers, made the trip to Great America from their hometown of Hanford in the south central San Joaquin Valley to take part in their first Courageous Kids Day, an event held annually by the American Cancer Society to provide children and their families “a day away from cancer.” Families on this day are invited to spend the day–free of charge–at the park where they are treated to a picnic lunch, celebrity visits, activities, goody bags and entertainment.
Like most families, the Bryants were cheerful as they talked about the quick progress their son had made. Christina described her son as active, happy, affectionate and smart, while her husband, Paul, called P.J. an inspiration.
“We’re blessed to have this boy in our lives,” Paul Bryant said. “He’s definitely my hero.”
P.J. was one of a record-breaking 600 kids who attended this year’s event. On this particular Courageous Kids Day, families could be seen taking formal photos on the lawn in the back of the grove, lining up for hot dogs and ice crea and snapping pictures with San Jose Sharks mascot Sharkie, as well as Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang.
Some stopped by to chat with Miss Silicon Valley contestants and Santa Clara University basketball players, while others stayed cool in the heat by participating in a water balloon toss. DJ Dave Lemley spun tunes while Doug Jones performed magic tricks and Dottie, the balloon lady, handed out her creations to excited youngsters. For the artistically inclined, there were long tables to indulge in craft activities or have faces painted.
Meanwhile, at the back of the Picnic Grove, 17-year-old Tessa Davis of Los Gatos sat at a table with her parents, Mike and Letitia. The topic of conversation at this table was water polo, novelist John Greene’s The Fault in Our Stars and a cookbook Tessa is working on for other kids with cancer. She’s been writing and collecting recipes since just about the first day she was diagnosed.
“It’s so important to have good nutrition and help your body keep its immune system up to go through radiation,” the Los Gatos High School junior said, adding that she has made a habit of juicing vegetables every day.
Tessa was diagnosed with neuroendocrine lung cancer just a few weeks before Christmas. The symptoms started with severe chest pains, and since she is a water polo player at school, she thought it might have been caused by a fungal infection. When she went to urgent care, doctors told her she had a collapsed lung. Tessa, who’d been healthy for most of her life, began the first of six rounds of chemotherapy treatments. She recently completed her last treatment.
Ironically, the cancer part aside, everything about living through the experience has been great, Tessa said. Going in and out of hospitals has exposed her to the spectrum of career choices available in the medical field and helped her realize she wants to eventually pursue nutrition, pediatrics or becoming a physician’s assistant. Even though she’s missed weeks of school, the learning has never stopped for Tessa.
“I learn more outside of school than in school,” she said.
The Make-A-Wish Foundation granted her wish to meet Greene and the cast of The Fault in Our Stars movie, an adaptation of the book about a 16-year-old cancer patient named Hazel, who when forced by her parents to attend a support group she meets and falls in love with Augustus Waters, an ex-basketball player and amputee.
The organization gave her the news at an elaborate Dutch-themed picnic similar to one that takes place in the book. In June, the organization will fly Tessa and two of her best friends out to New York City to the movie premiere.
But that’s not the only thing Tessa is looking forward to. She’s confident she’ll be able to play water polo again, and finally just stress out about normal high school things such as homework and the SATs.
But for one day, Tessa brushed all of that aside as she and her parents prepared to venture out to the Drop Tower, billed on the park’s website as one of the tallest and most intense free-fall rides in the world.
The rides and goody bag aside, the family said their favorite part about the day was the support and “community feel” at Courageous Kids Day.
“I don’t cry about the cancer; I cry about how everybody’s so supportive,” Letitia Davis said.
And she wasn’t the only one misty-eyed that day. Some might have shed a tear or two when a kids choir sang “I Will Sing Life,” with lyrics such as “Courageous Kids can show you the important things in life/Look in my eyes, it’s no surprise you just won’t find the strife.”
At one point, organizers called Gay Crawford to say a few words in honor of the event’s 25th year anniversary. Someone told Crawford to pause for a moment and soak in the success of a program she launched more than two decades ago. Looking around, Crawford couldn’t help but shed a few quiet tears.
A cancer survivor herself, Crawford founded Courageous Kids Day as an American Cancer Society volunteer to pay tribute to the her boss’s son, who had leukemia at the time.
“They lost their son, Lee, to cancer,” she said. “Even though I had survived breast cancer, seeing what happened to the family was devastating.”
Since 1989, the event has been held in conjunction with Great America, which supplies the lunch and admission for each child along with up to six members of his or her family. It’s a way of providing relief for many families that struggle financially with the high cost of cancer treatment, said Roger Ross, a spokesman for the park.
“It is a pretty special day for us,” he said. “Hopefully we can make it easier for them for one day. No kid should have to deal with cancer.”
That is the philosophy of the Steinfelds, a Los Gatos family that’s been involved in Courageous Kids Day since the first few years when they brought their son, Sam. He had been diagnosed with brain tumor not long after his first birthday and died two years later in 1993 after undergoing nine brain surgeries and a bone marrow transplant.
“This was always a special place for our family, just a great place to get away from cancer for a day,” said Bob Steinfeld, Sam’s father. “You come here and realize you’re not alone.”
After attending the event in 1991 and 1992, the Steinfelds began volunteering as a family in 1994. This year, Bob came with his immediate and extended family, and everyone pitched in to help ensure the event ran smoothly. His wife, Joyce, did the face painting. Their motivation is to see others have a good time and put cancer out of their mind, if only for a day.
“We know what they’re going through,” Bob said.
Kimberley Nall of Campbell could say she knows, too, having survived cancer three times in her 33 years of life. This year, she was invited to attend as an ambassador, the name given to cancer survivors. As Nall explained the role, ambassadors “provide hope for the kids and families that life after cancer is possible.”
Sitting happily with her husband, Jon, and 1-year-old daughter, Charlotte, Nall’s life now is much different than the first time she attended Courageous Kids Day as a 16-year-old. It was a year after she was diagnosed with Ewings sarcoma, a malignant cancerous bone tumor that affects children and has a 15 percent survival rate, according to Nall.
Doctors were planning to amputate her leg until they found a surgeon in San Francisco who offered an experimental treatment whereby Nall’s knee and tibia would be removed and replaced with a titanium prosthesis. Nall said she was the first person in the world to have this surgery, which proved to be successful, and soon after she was back in school, going on to graduate and move away to college at the UC-Davis.
Four years later, doctors found that the cancer had spread, necessitating the removal of half of her lung. After undergoing more chemotherapy and radiation treatments, she returned to school to continue with her studies. With graduation looming, Nall was diagnosed yet again, this time with renal cell carcinoma, a type of kidney cancer that starts in the lining of very small tubes in the kidney. Doctors suspected this one might have been caused by the years of radiation treatments. Despite having to undergo surgery to remove a kidney, Nall went on to graduate on time and start a career in health care and nonprofits, at one point working with the American Cancer Society.
She got married in 2012 and gave birth to Charlotte a year later, despite doctors telling her she was likely infertile.
How did she get through it all?
“I dealt with it,” Nall said. “Every time, I faced it head on and did what I had to do.”
Fellow ambassador Tiffany Gelineau attended the very first Courageous Kids Day event in 1989. The San Jose resident returned as a cancer patient the following two years. Gelineau, who is now 42, was diagnosed with leukemia at the age of 9. After undergoing treatment at Stanford Hospital and Clinics, she had a relapse at 12, which led to further rounds of treatment throughout her pre-teen years. At 30, Gelineau was diagnosed with breast cancer, and she beat that, too.
“That inspired me to go into nursing,” she said. Today, Gelineau is a nurse at the Harker School in San Jose and continues to volunteer with Camp Okizu, a residential camp for children struggling with a life threatening illness that she first encountered as a patient 32 years ago.
This year, Gelineau brought her husband, Mark, and 2-year-old son, Bryce.
“It’s just inspiring to know I’ve beaten it and I’ve moved on,” she said.
Gelineau said she wanted to “see others and talk to them and give them hope that there’s life after cancer.”
Around 200 people volunteered at this year’s milestone event, Crawford said. Among those was Los Gatos resident Francesa Rude, who has been a Courageous Kids Day volunteer for the past 15 years, usually taking on fundraising duties. This year Rude served as the event’s chairwoman. And like almost everyone else there, she has made it a family affair, bringing her three daughters to help.
“It’s just something that’s become a part of my life,” said Rude. “I can’t imagine not doing this.”
Courageous Kids event at Great America gives children with cancer a chance to escape for a day
