This is a hat I created to help spread awareness of childhood cancer. I will be publishing it in the next couple of weeks if testing goes well. It will be a free pattern. I designed it with fingering weight yarn (sock yarn) to make a light wearing hat suitable for September weather. It’s time to look for a beautiful gold fingering yarn! Get ready to wear gold this September and show your support for the thousands of children who are fighting cancer and will be diagnosed this year.

Cancer is the number one killing disease of children. 1 in 330 children will be diagnosed with cancer before the age of 20 and at least 1 in 5 will die in the first 5 years. 98% of survivors will suffer from at least one chronic illness with 81% developing a life threatening illness by age 45. Most of these illnesses are directly related to the treatment.

Yet research is horribly underfunded. Only 4% of the NCI’s research budget is given for research of all childhood cancers and the Canadian Cancer Society only gives 2.4% of it’s budget for the same. In every first world country the story is the same. In third world countries cancer is death sentence. There are many cancers that only affect children.

Hand-me-down treatments researched for adults are not good enough. Our children deserve more than the crumbs off our table. If the cancer doesn’t damage the child diagnosed the chemo will. Something I know all to well. We need better treatments.

It is time to take a stand and insist that governments and big pharma take childhood cancer seriously and put an end to the suffering.