Sometimes, you meet someone on the side of Pikes Peak mountain at 5am. You hit it off and later they give you a ride down the mountain in a bright-blue three-wheeled… thing with your Disney process suitcase strapped to the top. And it all feels like kismet — this was meant to happen.

Or perhaps our anniversary? Whatever you want to call it, the Little Warrior Foundation has been plugging away for TWO years!
While we're taking a quick look in our rear-view mirror to celebrate how far we've come, we're still standing on the gas pedal on the road to a better tomorrow so that no kid has to suffer.

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We’re continuing to run at full speed in 2022 and are excited to announce a grant to Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) for $150,000 to help support the opening of a phase II clinical trial for Ewing and Ewing-like sarcoma. This clinical trial will test the therapeutic efficacy of combining low-dose Gemcitabine (Gem) chemotherapy with a targeted checkpoint kinase 1 (CHK 1) inhibitor, labelled as LY2880070.

Little Warrior Foundation was featured in the Milwaukee Business Journal on Dec 24, 2021. “In just 18 months a series of bake sales and gift drives, golf outings and galas, a retail line and just a motivated network of family and friends turned into over $1 million raised for childhood cancer research from the newly created Little Warrior Foundation.

Piero and Maggie Spada and relative Emily McFadden started the Little Warrior Foundation in 2020 . . .”

The focus of the Little Warrior Foundation is advancing therapies that target Ewing Sarcoma. We have some exciting news that involves a therapy in the pipeline, an ambitious immunotherapy approach that now seems well within reach due to the expansive use of the mRNA vaccines. (COVID’s silver lining?). Together with the Rutledge Foundation, we’re funding an exciting immunotherapy program with Cleveland Clinic.

Since our inception in the spring of 2020, you have helped us raise over $1,000,000! We’re humbled. We’re proud. We’re so incredibly grateful. Thanks for being a part of our scrappy team and letting Little Warriors everywhere know that we’ve all got their backs.

While our first two blog posts may paint a grim picture for progress in childhood cancer outcomes, we have made the decision to dig in our heels, be catalysts for change, and go rebel-ninja on this issue. This piece is about refusing to accept the statistics and about rewriting them.

In the world of cancer language and statistics, the term “survivor” is merely a label given to a patient is still alive 5 years after they were diagnosed. It’s not true, and it’s not fair — especially for kids.

When it comes to our kids, it feels like we’re painting success with a very weird, very broad brush that just doesn’t exist in discussions around adult cancers. Our resident “Cancer Mom” breaks down the stats behind the the loaded term “Childhood Cancer”.

The Spada Pediatric Sarcoma Foundation is now the Little Warrior Foundation.

Because this is about all kids fighting Ewing sarcoma, nationwide — not just about Lucy or the Spada family. It’s about every single kid in the fight, the survivors, the angel warriors, and those who haven’t even been diagnosed yet. We're an inclusive landing place for anyone who is ready to fight on behalf of these kids.

Our singular focus is to find a complete and permanent cure for Ewing Sarcoma. We believe these projects can have a positive impact now, the near future, and in the not-too distant future for our children. Collectively, we have granted $500,000 to these 4 different research initiatives in our first year as a foundation.

One year after learning the term “Ewing’s Sarcoma” the hard way, the Spada Pediatric Sarcoma Foundation is proud to announce our first research grant. After digging deep on the science, we’re granting $75,000 to the Children’s Cancer Therapy Development Institute (cc-TDI) to co-fund promising research in maintenance therapy.

The field of Pediatric Cancer hasn’t had many major breakthroughs — or even new chemo drugs — in the past few decades. So, we decided to let our rage lead us down a research rabbit hole to see just how the US’s investment in our children stacks up to investments in… other things. Take a closer look at where we choose — as a country — to invest.