Where the Money Goes

You are here

Home » Kate's Cause

Kate's Cause

Kate’s Cause was formed after Kate Olivia Rhoades passed away from childhood cancer at the tender age of four. After she passed, her family promised that her death would not be in vain and launched the cause in her honor and memory to accomplish three goals.

  1. Raise Awareness: Currently, the federally funded National Cancer Institute (NCI) only allocates 4% of its annual budget to research for childhood cancers. Small organizations such as ours cannot do it alone. We NEED the government to help make our children a national priority and provide MORE THAN FOUR!
  2. Raise Funds: We want to support the most promising prospects in pediatric oncology research: for better and less toxic treatments for the kids in treatment today and for the kids who will be diagnosed tomorrow.
  3. Give Back to the Pediatric Cancer Community: We want to support the pediatric cancer community that so wholeheartedly embraced us through various donations, drives and activities for Kate’s beloved clinic, The Pediatric Specialists of Virginia Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders and her treatment hospital, Inova Children’s Hospital.
Visit Kate's Cause for more information

Co-Funded Projects

Project Title Institutions Co-Funder(s)
Drugging MYCN Alfred I duPont Hospital for Children, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, The Regents of the University of California San Francisco, University of California San Francisco, University of Würzburg Connor’s Heroes Foundation, Cure4Cam Childhood Cancer Foundation, Kate's Cause, Sammy’s Superheroes Foundation, The Catherine Elizabeth Blair Memorial Foundation
Optimizing TCRαβ+/CD19+-depleted haploidentical HSCT for ALL using donor-derived genome-edited CAR T cells Stanford University School of Medicine Cure4Cam Childhood Cancer Foundation, Tap Cancer Out, Kate's Cause
Cooperating Signaling Networks Regulate Cell Survival of Pediatric Ph-like ALL University of Pennsylvania Kate's Cause

Featured Hero

Jesse Driskell

Jesse has always pushed through difficult things to come out on top with everything he does. When he was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma, his determination got him through every round of treatment until he rang the bell and reached remission!
Read more »