Pediatric Cancer Patients Leave Their Mark

Hyundai Hope On Wheels® and the South Florida Hyundai Dealers Association presented a $100,000 Hyundai Impact Award grant to Kerice Pinkney, MD and Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital Foundation at a recent event in Hollywood. The dollars are earmarked to underwrite cancer-related needs at the pediatric facility.

South Florida children battling the disease participated in the program’s signature handprint ceremony, where they dipped their hands in paint and added their prints to a white Hyundai SUV. Their colorful contribution to the Hope vehicle represents their cancer journeys, hopes, and dreams.

Fourteen-year-old Jaylin Pulido, a Pembroke Pines resident that survived Hodgkin’s lymphoma, spoke about the care she received at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital, her love for the caregivers, and how important services supported by Hyundai are to kids and families going through treatment.

“This grant is supporting our navigation program, which means that every child diagnosed with cancer will have a nurse navigator to help them through their whole journey, which can be very long, difficult, and challenging for the whole family,” said Caitlin Stella, CEO of Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital. “It’s like having a partner through your treatment, and those services are only available with grant support.”

With the award, the hospital’s nonprofit foundation will have received more than $1.2 million in total lifetime funding from Hyundai’s Hope On Wheels campaign, which began nationally in 1998. The initiative is supported by Hyundai and its U.S. dealers, including those in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, to help kids fight cancer.