Jill Rosbrugh became involved in the Kick Out Cancer fund raiser this year due to her two sons, a junior and a freshman, playing soccer on the Park Hill men’s soccer team.
The first Kick Out Cancer fund raiser was in 2013, after one of the players on the Park Hill Soccer team was diagnosed with testicular cancer during the 2013 season.
Toys were collected for this year’s Kick Out Cancer event, which focused on pediatric cancers.
The head varsity coach, Josh Marchbank, and the players wanted to support their teammate, Nick Hibbeler, and so they collaborated with Park Hill South to host a fund raiser at one of the Park Hill v Park Hill South soccer games that year. The funds raised were donated to the Victory Project. Hibbeler is now a 10-year survivor of cancer.
“The soccer team has held the fund raiser the past two years, while I was part of the parent booster club, but it was not something that I was actively involved in until this year,” Rosbrugh said.
This year, a family of a freshman junior varsity player approached the booster club about being part of the Kick Out Cancer fund raiser. They shared that their 5-year-old daughter had passed away in 2022 from neuroblastoma, a very rare type of cancerous tumor that almost always affects children. The 5-year-old was treated at Children’s Mercy Hospital for the eight months that she battled cancer.
“I was touched by how the family, still so fresh in their grief, wanted to give back,” Rosbrugh said. “I knew that we had an opportunity to make this special for their family and also make this fund raiser more personal for our players and soccer family. I decided to take the lead for the fund raiser and worked closely with the Morales family to determine the focus and message of this year’s event. The focus of the event, in honor of their daughter Giada, was childhood cancer.”
The fund raiser organizers wanted to raise awareness for childhood cancer, support pediatric cancer research, and collect toys to donate to the children fighting cancer at Children’s Mercy
Nick came to the recent fund raiser last month and was able to see his former coach, Marchbank, and also stand out on the field with the varsity players before kickoff.
“I did not know that he was coming until about an hour before the game,” Rosbrugh said. “It was really special to have him there. I think it pulled together the message that fighting childhood cancer is fighting ‘for those who have fought and won, for those still fighting, for those who fought until the end, and for those yet to fight’ - this is a quote that I saw on several sites that had inspirational quotes for childhood cancer awareness.”
The money raised at the recent fund raiser went to Children’s Mercy Hospital and it is specifically designated to support pediatric cancer research.
“The fund raiser was a huge success,” Rosbrugh said. “There was so much positive energy at the game and lots of engagement from players, parents, and the community. We sold around 870 Kick Out Cancer bracelets, raised around $4,900 to donate to pediatric cancer research, and collected 320 toys. This year is one of the highest amounts of revenue raised, plus we are donating 320 toys (difficult to determine monetary value, but if you average $15 per toy, then we raised around $4,800 in toy donations).”
Over the last 11 years since the fund raiser began, around $42,000 has been raised. From 2013-2018, money was donated to the Victory Project. From 2019-2022, money was donated to the American Cancer Society.