What will 11:22 do for DIPG?

This will answer the question, “11:22, what would it do for DIPG?”

Shortly after Jace died unexpectedly of a brain bleed, his Mom wrote the following: “At 11:22 pm on July 3, at age 22, while I hugged him tight Jace entered Heaven. Such a Jace move. 11 as in 11:11 make a wish- his childhood bond with [his sister] Brooke. Then 22 — the “2” theme. He played [football] as #2, Blake [brother] as #12 and Roger [his dad] as 22.” “11:22 in the middle of my big hug brought us all together. #tough2gether Jace Ward style! “

You see, 11:22 IS Jace Ward. It’s his number now. When he was diagnosed with DIPG, he was told it was terminal and he had 9 months to live. Jace calculated 9 months away and it was one day before his 21^st birthday. There was NO WAY he was going to miss his 21^st Birthday celebration with all his friends and family!

He always had a way of bringing people together. He was tough and never wanted DIPG to be only about Jace Ward. He named his organization for a principle he had acquired through his 22 years of life experiences and it formed the nucleus or core for all the people he met who were affected by DIPG and who wanted to cure it. He named it #Tough2Together.

If Jace were here today, he would be working to help Stanford University to get more kids into a DIPG/Spinal cord GD2 Car T Cell Trial like his. Until now, nothing has been this promising. His tumor actually reduced by nearly 70% with the 5 infusions of the CAR T-CELLS directly into his tumor.

In order to make this trial work properly and be able to touch as many children as soon as possible, Stanford determined they needed to add three more positions: A dedicated research Fellow, a Cell Pharmacist, and a research Nurse Practitioner.

Since this is urgent, and they cannot wait a year or two to get grant funding for this, some really great childhood cancer organizations have come together, raised $230,0000 and funded the Fellow and Pharmacist. We still need to raise $20,000 more to be able to hire the much needed Nurse Practitioner.

Jace would not want us to wait a year or two for a grant. He touched so many people on his incredible journey, we believe that if we could, in his words, “Make the circle bigger” and ask as many people as possible to donate only $11.22 in his honor, we can raise the money to hire the Nurse Practitioner.