Why Michigan Families Need Us: Stories from our first months in MI

When Parker Project expanded into Michigan less than eight months ago, we knew the need would be great. We did not expect to meet eight families in crisis so quickly—families facing the unimaginable, fighting for their children’s lives while trying to keep their homes, jobs, and hope intact.

Michigan is not immune to the childhood cancer crisis. Around 380 Michigan children and adolescents are diagnosed with cancer each year. Leukemia is the most common diagnosis, followed by several types of lymphoma. Michigan’s statewide cancer registry, MCSP, tracks pediatric cancer cases to support research and public health response. For more information, visit Michigan Health Statistics . These numbers are not just statistics—they are babies, toddlers, teens, and families whose lives change overnight.

What We Saw in Our First Months Here

In our first months in Michigan, we met families confronting challenges that extended far beyond a diagnosis:

• Long drives to specialty hospitals. Families we serve receive care at Mott Children’s Hospital and Children’s Hospital of Michigan. Some travel about 10 minutes each way; others travel close to 200 miles round trip.
• Job loss and reduced hours. More than half of the Michigan parents we helped this year faced job loss or a severe reduction in work hours as treatment schedules made full-time work impossible.
• Hard choices between rent and getting to treatment. We assisted four families with housing costs and utilities, two with transportation costs such as car payments and insurance, five with groceries, and three with gas for their vehicles. These are among Michigan families’ greatest needs.
• Hospital stays that meant sleeping in chairs for weeks at a time.
• Siblings separated from parents and children as families tried to keep the rest of life stable while everything changed.

Every family had a different story, but each story carried the same thread: they needed help, and they needed it fast.

Practical Help, Right When It Is Needed

That is where Parker Project stepped in. Help with housing, utilities, transportation, groceries, or gas can ease pressure on families as they focus on their child’s care. It cannot make treatment easy, but it can help families hold on to a little more stability through an overwhelming season.

In 2027, we plan to help even more local Michigan families. That will be possible because of our local community and legacy pledges. Join us in supporting Michiganders as they take on pediatric cancer. These are the families behind the statistics—and they remind us why we came to Michigan.