GRACE CALLWOOD
UNITED STATES, 16
Project: We Cancerve Movement Inc.
Focus Area: Foster Care Education/Community Libraries
In 2012, Grace founded the We Cancerve Movement, Inc. – a nonprofit organization with the mission to bring happiness to homeless, sick and foster youth. Now age 16, Grace is also the Chairwoman of the We Cancerve Movement, Inc.’s all-youth board of advisors. We Cancerve Movement, Inc.’s programs and initiatives, which include a free summer camp for homeless and foster youth and a free full-service boutique for teen girls in foster care, have reached 22,000+ children to date.
Grace has been awarded more than $110,000 from national and global prizes for her work, and she has raised more than three times that amount. She also created the We Cancerve Pediatric Patient Assistance Fund at Sinai Hospital, raising more than $15,000 for the treatment of hospitalized children. Since 2015, Grace has granted more than $10,000 in “Make Happiness Happen” micro-grants to area nonprofits that provide direct services to homeless, sick and foster children. In 2020, she disbursed the first of four $2,115 “Let’s Do More” micro-grants to Maryland-based nonprofits serving predominantly Black homeless and foster youth.
Grace is the 2019 World of Children honoree, a 2019 CNN Young Wonder and a 2020 Hormel Foods 10 Under 20 Food Hero. She is currently a sophomore honors and AP student enrolled in the Global Studies International Baccalaureate program at Edgewood High School. She is a member of St. James AME Church-Green Street, her school marching and jazz bands, and her school’s Black Student Alliance.
“I’ve learned that I’m a child advocate as well because there is no age limit on service.”
More: www.wecancerve.org
Teen Cancer Survivor Brings Happiness to Children in Need
For 17-year-old Grace Callwood, a terrible diagnosis sparked a lifelong desire to combat the sadness of kids confronting personal trauma. Grace Callwood knows what it feels like to be a child suffering from pain and sadness. In 2011, when she was just seven years old, Grace was diagnosed with stage 4 Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. “I had no idea what cancer was, or what it meant, until I had it. I just knew that this new terrible thing had come upon me,” Grace recalls.
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