On Saturday, MaxLove Project celebrated its 10th Annual Farm to Fork App-Off at Tanaka Farms in Irvine, where teams crafted tasty appetizers while raising money for the organization.
The nonprofit, which began in Orange County, is aimed at “improving the quality of life of families facing childhood cancers, pediatric rare diseases, and chronic hospitalizations with evidence-based culinary medicine, emotional health support, expert-driven health education, and therapeutic community.”
It was started by Audra Wilford after her son, Max, was diagnosed with a brain stem tumor when he was four-and-a-half years old.
At the event on Saturday, several families who lost their children to cancer shared touching stories about how "Max Love Project" has been there for them.
“I’m overwhelmed with gratitude that we, through the community we’ve built together and the resources that we can bring through together, that we can be here for families during the most difficult times in their lives,” Wilford told KNX News’ Margaret Carrero.
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She added that showing up for families that were dropped by the system “that once cared for them” means everything.
“We couldn’t do it without the support of our community and the resources that our community nourishes our nonprofit with,” she said.
Today, Max is 17 and a half years old and the cancer is stable.
“It's been stable for three years now, and the biggest thing was when I got my last surgery in 2019, and…it was like a rebuilding a little bit for me after that surgery,” he said. “But ever since then, it felt like it feels like it's kind of just gotten better and better.”
Audra credited improvements in medicine for saving Max’s life.
For more information on the Max Love Project, click here.
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