When one child is fighting cancer, the whole community shows up.
Behind every child in treatment, there's a network of people making sure the family isn't alone. Someone who brings meals. Someone who knows the family's name at check-in. A place to stay when home is too far away. A counselor who checks in, even on the hard days.
That network already exists in Charlottesville. This September, we're making it visible.
WHAT IS United for Gold
United for Gold is a campaign to bring awareness for Childhood Cancer Awareness Month in September, brought to life by organizations in Central Virginia working together as one Community of Care.
This isn't a fundraiser. It's a chance for our community to see the people and organizations who show up for local families every single day, and to stand alongside them.
We have 15 local organizations in our community of care.
Most families never plan for this. One day life is normal, and the next, everything changes. Knowing where to turn, and having a whole community behind you, can make an impossible situation a little more bearable.
That's what United for Gold is about. Not asking for donations. Just making sure every family knows: Charlottesville and Central Virginia show up for families going through really hard times. Let’s show our community we care by showing up in gold in September.
Why This Matters
Learn about the organizations that support these families
Share their stories
Wear gold in September
Show up at community events
Host events
Share our website for awareness
What you can do
Our Community of Care
No single organization can carry a family through childhood cancer alone. It takes housing, meals, medical care, emotional support, and everything in between. Each of our partner organizations plays a different role. Together, they form a full circle of support.
Below, organized alphabetically, is this community.
ASK Childhood Cancer Foundation
Over 350 Virginia families hear “your child has cancer” every year. ASK is there from day one.
Started by parents who'd been there themselves, ASK has spent over 50 years wrapping families in financial support, educational resources, and community connection. In Charlottesville alone, ASK supports over 42 families a year, covering medical bills, providing school support, holding events, and making sure no family navigates childhood cancer in isolation.
The Alyssa House
A home away from home. For as long as it takes.
The Alyssa House is a single-family home providing no-cost, long-term housing for families of children receiving life-saving treatment at UVA Children's Hospital. Since welcoming its first family in January 2017, The Alyssa House has served 40 families facing a range of health challenges, including organ transplants, cancer, extreme prematurity, and other complex conditions. Stays have ranged from one month to over a year, because every family's journey is different.
Camp Holiday Trails
350+ campers. 50+ diagnoses. Five decades of saying “you belong here.”
Founded in 1973 by UVA pediatricians, Camp Holiday Trails has spent five decades creating joyful, medically supported camp experiences for children living with complex health needs. From summer camps to family weekends to monthly Pop-Up Camps at UVA Children's, CHT meets kids where they are, and reminds them that a diagnosis doesn't define their childhood.
Cape Ivy
29,000 ponchos. One promise: no child faces treatment alone.
Since 2020, Cape Ivy has delivered nearly 29,000 handmade ponchos to hospitalized children, including 400 to 500 each year right here at UVA Children's. Every poncho is a reminder that someone in this community is thinking of you.
Ishan Gala Foundation
Born from loss. Built on love. Over 150 families supported and counting.
The Ishan Gala Foundation was formed in 2008 by Mayank and Sejal Gala just weeks after losing their two-year-old son Ishan to neuroblastoma. What began as a family's response to the unimaginable has grown into a Charlottesville-based organization that shows up for families in tangible ways: financial assistance, care packages, advocacy for less toxic treatments, and programs like the Extra Mile Program and Holiday Cheer Program that offer both emotional and practical support. In 2023 alone, IGF supported over 150 families, provided more than $90,000 in financial assistance, and delivered over 200 comfort packages to families across Virginia.
Special Love, Inc.
900 people a year. Patients, siblings, parents. Because cancer affects the whole family.
Special Love provides camps, community, and support to families across Virginia, DC, Maryland, and surrounding areas. From Camp Fantastic for patients to BRASS Camp for siblings, plus emergency financial relief and post-secondary scholarships, Special Love knows that healing happens in community. Nearly 900 people experienced that in 2025 alone.
Make-A-Wish Greater Virginia
178 wishes granted in 2025. Each one: strength, hope, and transformation.
Make-A-Wish Greater Virginia brings life-changing wishes to critically ill children across the Commonwealth. For a child in treatment, a wish isn't just a moment, it's a turning point. Something to look forward to. Something that belongs entirely to them.
Claire Parker Foundation
A Care Box with curated essentials so no family fights alone.
The Claire Parker Foundation began in 2015 as a project at Duke University and has since expanded to serve families through eight hospitals across Virginia and North Carolina. Their mission is to improve the quality of life for children battling cancer and their families through comprehensive Care Box programs, each one designed by families who have lived through pediatric cancer treatment themselves.
Lilypads Housing
1,500 families a year. Housing, essentials, and someone who shows up.
LilyPads provides holistic support to UVA pediatric families, from matching families with screened host homes, to essentials, toiletries, and comfort items. When a child is in treatment, the whole family needs a place to land. LilyPads makes sure they have one
Ronald McDonald House Charlottesville
Since 1981. 18 rooms. One mission: Family Stays..
For over 40 years, Ronald McDonald House Charlottesville has been a home away from home for families traveling to UVA for their child's medical treatment. Providing daily meals, transportation, and a room within walking distance of the hospital, because no parent should have to choose between being at their child's bedside and having a safe place to sleep.
University of Virginia Health
50 years of providing healthcare for children in Central Virginia and beyond
UVA Health Children’s is the clinical cornerstone of our community — where children receive world-class, compassionate cancer care and where so many of our coalition partners show up every single day to wrap families in support. This September, UVA Health and 15 community organizations are coming together to make sure every family knows that Charlottesville shows up for you.
Hogfarmers Charitable Foundation
Seven volunteers. Washington Commanders gear. And a promise to show up for every family that gets the call.
Founded in 2018 and based in Virginia, Hogfarmers Charitable Foundation supports children and families affected by pediatric cancer across Virginia, Washington D.C., and Southern Maryland, with limited services available nationwide. From the moment of diagnosis, they step in with gas cards, food cards, care packages, toys, and morale visits, showing up in their signature Washington Commanders gear to remind families that people are rooting for them. Sometimes a smile is the mission.
Love Big Love Well
Practical help. Spiritual hope. For families in their hardest season.
Love Big Love Well connects families navigating childhood cancer with volunteers who meet them where they are, near the treatment center and at home. Emotional, spiritual, and tangible support for the whole family, because the needs of the heart matter just as much as the needs of the body.
Shoes 4 Hope
One UVA student. One idea. Now six universities strong.
What started in 2021 as a UVA student initiative has grown into a six-campus movement. Shoes 4 Hope brings pediatric cancer patients together with college basketball teams for shoe painting sessions, shoes that are later worn on the court and auctioned to benefit UVA Children's Hospital. Proof that awareness starts with one person deciding to show up.
Yellow Door Foundation
13,500+ free nights of lodging. Because treatment shouldn't mean choosing between your child and a roof over your head.
Founded in 2017 and opening its first apartment in 2018, Yellow Door Foundation has delivered over 13,500 nights of free lodging to families of immunocompromised children undergoing cancer treatment and organ transplants at UVA Children's Hospital. Their 10 fully furnished apartments, available in one, two, and three bedrooms, are specially designed to meet the medical requirements of children with compromised immune systems. A sanctuary when families need it most.