Travis Tong decorated the window of his store, Tall Boyz Hobby and Swap Shop, on High Street in Hillsboro in honor of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month to bring awareness to the issue.

“We’ve had a few signatures on here,” said Tong. “Basically, it was for anybody who’s been affected by childhood cancer to come out and sign the window and tell their story a little bit, so we had several people out here.”

Tong’s daughter, 14-year-old Savannah, was diagnosed at the age of 3 with a rare and aggressive brain cancer. “They say that we can’t say she’s in remission,” said Tong. “The rarity part of this is the fact that even with the surgeries and the radiation treatment, fibers are still embedded within the brain tissue, so it has an 80 percent chance of coming back at any time in her life.”

National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month is an annual national health campaign organized by major childhood cancer organizations to increase awareness of pediatric cancer and to raise funds for research into its cause, prevention, diagnosis, treatment and cure.

In September of 2019, Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia introduced a resolution to recognize September as National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. The resolution passed with unanimous consent Sept. 26, 2019.

Aralyn Slack, 10, and Olivia Furbee, 8, both of Lynchburg, visited the display at the shop. Slack was diagnosed with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG), a rare brain tumor. Furbee was diagnosed with leukemia two weeks after she finished kindergarten.

“I had these window artists do a picture on the window with a gold ribbon for Childhood Cancer Awareness Month,” said Tong. “We invited anyone to come out and sign the window to give honor to these kids who fight through this because there’s way too many in this small area.”

Tong said the fight against childhood cancer has not been prioritized as highly as the battle against other cancers. “It’s just to raise awareness because they always say that childhood cancer is rare, so when they do all the fundraising and all the funding for cancer research, only 3.8 percent goes to pediatric cancer, and that’s something that so many of us are trying to get changed,” he said.

“I know that breast cancer is pretty much commercialized now,” said Tong. “We just want more awareness of the issue, especially around here.”

Tong said members of a Jeep club from Dayton, who have followed his daughter’s story since she was diagnosed, came to visit the display. “They brought some of their old Jeeps down and took pictures,” said Tong. “The ironic thing was that just the day before, one of the members of the Jeep club had found out that their good friend’s daughter, at 16 years old, just got diagnosed with acute leukemia, so they put her name down as well.”

Reach John Hackley at 937-402-2571.