CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) - This week's Difference Maker is a charity created by a young girl who bravely fought cancer until the very end and captured thousands of hearts along the way.
"The fight that I've been going through for the past four years has been difficult, but you got to stay strong and you got to stay positive no matter what happens,” said 12-year-old Emily Beazley on April 28, 2015, when she was named an honorary Chicago Police officer.
Emily, who was fighting a very aggressive form of Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, died two and a half weeks later on May 18.
“[There was] so much of that joy she brought to us. She's been gone nine years now,” said Emily’s father, retired Chicago Police Detective Ed Beazley.
He says Emily's dream of helping other children fight cancer continues to this day through the charity she dreamed up on her own, Kures for Kids.
Emily even drew a logo for the charity, including a dog inspired by her chihuahua Carly.
Kures for Kids focuses on raising money for childhood cancer research, and, Emily's father says, all the good it's doing is a comfort to their family.
“Last year was a big milestone. We passed $2 million,” Beazley notes.
Much of that money has been raised through a partnership with the St. Baldrick’s Foundation, and he's hoping with Giving Tuesday coming up, more people will donate.
“ It's funding research at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and at John Hopkins University, at their hospital, it's funding childhood cancer, leukemia research.
“She would be just amazed at it. She was so appreciative of everything that everybody ever did for her and for kids like her. She was always concerned about other kids,” Beazley says.
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