Prisma Health Children’s Hospital receives $1.2 million from non-profit to help end childhood cancer

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WOLO) — Clay and Grainne Owen created the non-profit organization Curing Kids Cancer in 2005 after losing their nine-year-old son, Killian, to leukemia.

When doctors realized Killian wouldn’t survive, they suggested that Clay and Grainne take Killian and his siblings to Disneyworld to create some final memories.

“So we had to smile, and make sure that he had fun and that they had fun, and that was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. And I see Killian in everyone of the children here who get treated here, because I know how that feels,” says Grainne Owen.

On Monday morning, the Owens’ organization presented a check to Prisma Health Children’s Hospital for$240,000 — fulfilling their endowment pledge to the hospital for $1.2 million.

Jamie Sox’s son Braden survived having leukemia at 10-years-old. Braden was one of many children treated for cancer at Prisma Health Children’s Hospital.

“So Curing Kids Cancer has just been a really important organization to us, as they raise money to give back to the hospital for research, but they’ve also provided a lot of opportunities for kids going through things like Braden,” says Sox.

To honor the non-profit organization’s commitment to the children’s hospital, the center’s outpatient hematology and oncology clinic will be renamed the “Gamecocks Curing Kids Cancer Clinic.”

Grainne says she hopes the funds help keep other families from experiencing what her family went through.

“I didn’t get to see Killian grow up. He will always be nine (years old). And my hope and my wish for them is that they get to see their kids grow up, get married, have children — do all the things that people who don’t have cancer take for granted,” says Grainne.

Since its inception, Curing Kids Cancer has raised $25 million dollars to help end childhood cancer.