Nonprofit fundraising to send Hayward boy battling rare cancer to Disney World
HAYWARD, Calif. - UPDATE: Henry Carter's goal came true - and then some. Read more here.
A Hayward boy is in the fight of his life, battling a particularly resistant form of cancer.
Now a nonprofit is asking for the public's help to send him on the trip of a lifetime to Disney World.
They call him "Hank the Tank," otherwise known as Henry Carpenter. At 4 years old, he's already spent half his life battling cancer.
It all started when the family noticed a small lump on his head.
"A few days later he was diagnosed with stage 4 neuroblastoma, and it was everywhere," said his mother Allie Carpenter.
He had a tumor the size of a softball on his adrenal gland. It had also spread to his bone marrow, and to his brain. Hank's cancer turned out to be stubborn.
"His treatment worked for a little while but not well enough. And he progressed," said Carpenter.
So the family made a decision, they would try treatment with specialists at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York. At first Hank and his mom Allie moved there for a year. Now they go back and forth each month. Hank's dad and two siblings stay behind.
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These trips and the last two years have been incredibly hard on the family. So the nonprofit Campaign One at a Time is trying to help them with a different kind of travel.
The organization is trying to raise $5,000 to send the Carpenters to Disney World.
"We really believe in giving these families dream trips to look forward to altogether. Something happy, something outside the hospital, something separate from all the trauma," said Nick Ordonez of Campaign One at a Time.
The family is hoping by late summer Hank might be well enough to go.
The latest treatment seems to be shrinking his tumors. Still, while Hank is tough, this cancer has been too.
"Once you clear one area, it pops up somewhere else," said Allie Carpenter.
But the family is hopeful. And they say the prospect of a little Disney magic might be just what they need to keep going.
"And to be able to make a type of memory that would last forever would be, I feel, priceless because we never know what's going to happen," said Carpenter.
Campaign One at a Time is based in California and helps fundraise for kids battling severe illnesses. They're hoping to raise the $5000 for Hank the Tank by next Tuesday.
Those who wish to donate can do so by visiting https://www.campaignoaat.org/oaat-west/teamhanktank or through VENMO @campaignoaat with a note that says #Team_Hank_Tank.