Keaton’s Child Cancer alliance Offers Support to Families

From the outside, Keaton’s Child Cancer Alliance’s Family Wellness Centre is unassuming, tucked into a quiet industrial park on Douglas Boulevard in Roseville. It’s less than a mile away from the nearby Kaiser medical center. Inside, staff have carefully designed the space to offer children and their families a agreeable and supportive place to navigate one of life’s biggest obstacles: a child’s cancer diagnosis.

“Initially when a family hears the words ‘Your child has cancer,’ their entire world is turned upside down,” said Jessica Alonso, executive director of Keaton’s child Cancer Alliance. “They are now entering a fight to save their child’s life.”

Alonso explained that Keaton’s is frequently enough the first institution to connect with a family following their child’s diagnosis, typically thru a referral from a hospital social worker. This support comes in the form of financial grants,as well as emotional and peer support throughout the child’s cancer journey.

“Oftentimes, families are extremely overwhelmed from an emotional standpoint, unsure of how to navigate the medical system and care for their child,” Alonso said.

Tonya Blosser knows this feeling firsthand.She said it all started in 2022 with a series of strange, “random” sicknesses for her son, Kodiak. She remembers noticing he seemed pale and made an appointment for him to see a doctor,though it didn’t initially feel urgent. Following blood work, she received a call instructing her to take her son to the emergency room.

“It was quite the roller coaster road from that point on,” she said. “What people don’t understand is one day I’m going to work, cutting hair – That’s what I did. I was a barber – and then the next day,my son’s sick,and I’m the only parent. What am I supposed to do?”

Keaton’s quickly became a part of her solution.

“He had bone marrow cancer,” Blosser said. “We lived in the hospital from January to September of 2023, and then we almost had four months out. And then we relapsed again.”

Robyn and Kyle Raphael, of Roseville, founded Keaton’s Child Cancer Alliance in 1998 after the death of their son, Keaton, 5, from Stage 4 Neuroblastoma. A tribute to the family remains at the entrance to the Wellness Center. Since its founding, Keaton’s Child Cancer Alliance has assisted more than 2,700 children and their families.

On average, Alonso said, treatment for leukemia in children takes three to five years, and many families rely on the nonprofit’s support throughout multiple years.

“It’s the greatest honor to continue to honor the legacy of keaton Raphael and the Raphael family and their goals and wishes for the organization to ensure that no child, or their family, has to navigate this journey alone,” Alonso said.

Kodiak is back in school this fall and feeling better, though his journey is not yet complete. “It makes literally a life changing difference,” Blosser said.