Over the past two weeks, 90,000 of you donated nearly $3.4 million to help fight pediatric cancer. That is a staggering amount of money. Thank you. For those of you who might not have been in a place to contribute financially, thank you so much for engaging with this difficult material. The support and solidarity you showed these families was just as valuable as the money itself. You are the most caring community of people on the Internet. That's no exaggeration. It's proven by the tone of every comment section. And it's proven by the $8.5 million you've given to charity in the past 1.5 years. You are such a compassionate collection of people, and I can't thank you enough for all that you've contributed to HONY. Lastly, thank you so much to Dr. O'Reilly and the Department of Pediatrics at Memorial Sloan Kettering for making this series possible. Special thanks to Nina Pickett and Rachel Corke, who paved every stone on my path.
I've got one last story to leave you with. Last night you raised over $1 million in honor of Max to research and cure DIPG—the brain tumor that killed him. Dr. Souweidane tells me that this money represents the "single greatest leap forward" in his personal crusade against DIPG. When I interviewed Julie a few days ago, we were sitting on a bench in Madison Square Park that had been dedicated to Max. The plaque listed all the things that Max loved, and one of those things was 'millions.' I asked Julie what that meant. 'Max's uncle Charley gave him one hundred dollars,' she told me. 'And Max kept saying that one day he'd have a million.' So thank you, everyone, for giving Max his million.
I'll be leaving the fundraiser up all day, for anyone who would still like to donate: http://bit.ly/1TpFcdy