By Gwen Mysiak

P.U.N.T. Pediatric Cancer Collaborative has an address of 712 Main Street in Buffalo, but that’s not where you will find it. Instead, P.U.N.T. can be found in action on the 12th floor of Oishei Children’s Hospital, at the pediatric clinic at Roswell Park, and in the homes of our community’s youngest cancer fighters. P.U.N.T. is in the bracelets, lemonade, and pencils that were handmade by children to help the cause, and in shoulder pads and football cleats on NFL Sunday.

Public charities are bonds of trust. We are stewards of our supporters’ hard-earned resources willingly invested in our mission so that a family’s suffering can be lessened. What does that mean on a day-to-day basis?

Adopt-a-Family.

We annually coordinate the adoption of every child fighting cancer in Western New York and their entire family for Christmas, plus families of kids with cancer who didn’t end up making it to Christmas.

Helping Hands.

We directly pay rents, mortgages, keep lights and heat on, and water running. We make car payments and take care of medical bills. We average $20,000 per month in household expense payments based on social worker requests to help parents drowning in the financial tidal wave of their child’s cancer diagnosis.

Game Day.

P.U.N.T. gives children fighting cancer the opportunity to cheer on the Buffalo Bills with their family in the security and comfort of a private suite through our Game Day program.

Locker Program.

We help countless families breathe a sigh of relief as they exit hospital parking garages and hand over the vouchers that we provide rather than their last 20 dollars. We fill their tank with gas or their trunk with groceries through gift cards that ease the stress that comes from trying to keep their household together as their whole world fell apart.

While delivering help is at the heart of our organization, serving the bereaved is at our soul.

Ultimate Compassion program.

When a family’s whole world goes dark from a loss to pediatric cancer, we deliver checks to funeral homes and offer the comfort that our commitment does not end with the loss of their child’s pediatric cancer battle. We host an annual Remembrance Weekend retreat each year for grief-stricken families who tell us that the only thing worse than their child dying would be their child being forgotten. We are on a mission to make Western New York a more grief-sensitive community through coordinating peer support, training, and education.

Community support makes this all possible. Only with you can our organization continue to be a beacon of help and hope for one of the worst plights a family could ever face. Learn more about P.U.N.T. Pediatric Cancer Collaborative at https://puntpediatriccancer.org. To get involved by volunteering or donating, visit https://puntpediatriccancer.org/get-involved.

Gwen Mysiak is the Executive Director of the Pediatric Cancer Collaborative. While Gwen has over 30 years of nonprofit experience, her passion and understanding for the mission of P.U.N.T is very personal. Her cousin, Andrew Pawlak, lost his life to pediatric cancer in 2011 when he was just 15 years old.