To celebrate Roe Roe Tucker’s 8th Birthday, Roe Roe’s Heroes donated $8,000 to Brenner Children’s Pediatric Oncology Clinic

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (WGHP) — For the second year Roe Roe’s Heroes Childhood Cancer Foundation made a surprise donation to Brenner Pediatric Oncology Clinic Thursday.

The foundation donated $8,000 in honor of Pearl Monroe “Roe Roe” Tucker’s 8th birthday and two-year anniversary of ringing the bell of victory. Last year, the foundation donated $7,000 in honor of her 7th birthday.

The daughter of FOX8’s Chad Tucker , along with her siblings, surprised the clinic staff that cared for her and her family during their 858-day battle with B-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.

Roe Roe is currently in her second year of remission.

Roe Roe’s Heroes was created in 2021 and named in honor of the community of heroes who supported and surrounded the Tucker family during their long cancer journey. The all-volunteer foundation works to continue that spirit, helping local families battle pediatric cancer.

This year, Chad and his wife Meredith, started “The Hero Library,” which was inspired by one of their children’s favorite singers: Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library.

The program gives away children’s books that touch on topics to help comfort kids while living in hospital rooms. Many of the selected books personally helped the Tuckers’ kids understand living with cancer, hospital life, side effects, impacts on siblings and loss.

The foundation also aids in emergency assistance, sponsors family support events, provides scholarships to future pediatric healthcare workers and teams up with foundations that use play as a form of healing.

Chad and Meredith also work to bring awareness to pediatric cancer and advocate for increased research funding. Their work with foundations and hospitals has helped raise more than a million dollars in recent years for families and research.

Cancer is the #1 cause of death by disease among children. Each day, 47 children are diagnosed with cancer in the United States, totaling more than 17,000 children in the U.S. each year.

Only 5% of the federal cancer research budget is allotted to pediatric cancer research.

In the United States, 84% of children diagnosed with cancer are alive at least five years after diagnosis. Survival, however, does not mean they are cured or free from long-term side effects.

Even those who are cured may suffer long-term side effects as a result of the cancer treatments they received while their young bodies were developing. Children who were treated for cancer are twice as likely to suffer chronic health conditions later in life versus children without a history of cancer.

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