Jason Garcia
Queso! joins the fight against Pediatric Brain Cancer
Being the news hound that I am, I've followed Andrew Kaczynski, aka KFILE, on Twitter going back to his days at Buzzfeed. Now at CNN, Andrew still drops fantastic information on social media, but his posts about his adorable daughter, Francesca, really hit home for me.
Unfortunately, Francesca, aka "Beans", was diagnosed with pediatric brain cancer in September 2020 at only six months old. Sadly, Beans lost her battle just three months later on Christmas Eve. Today, March 11th, would've been her second birthday.
Beans' memory has lived on, and her impact is still being felt today, thanks to the resilience of her parents. Andrew and his wife, Rachel, have since raised over $2 MILLION with the hopes of preventing other families from facing the same plight.
The reality is that many more children will face the same diagnosis, and $2 million is just a drop in the bucket of what is needed. Unbelievably, only 4% of the National Cancer Institute's $6 BILLION federal budget goes toward pediatric cancers.
Any parent can be dealt the same hand as Andrew and Rachel at anytime, and we shouldn't wait until being affected personally to help. As a fellow girl dad, it was impossible to read one of Andrew's tweets about Beans' fight and not imagine myself in his shoes.
When I decided to build Queso!, I was committed to making a social impact once we got off the ground. Following Beans' journey through Andrew made it obvious that this was also going to be our fight.
That's why we're pledging 10% of revenue each and every month to the cause. While we're just getting ready to launch Queso!, we're going to get the ball rolling today with a $500 donation to Andrew's Boston Marathon campaign on behalf of Team Beans.
Click the button below to visit Andrew's fundraising page and make an $11 donation for Beans' birthday!