A Reunion, a Bronze Bell and a Proclamation: USA Health Marks Childhood Cancer Awareness Month

MOBILE, Ala. — September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and at Children’s & Women’s Hospital it will be marked twice: once in a courtyard full of families, and once in a quieter room with a bronze bell.

Latest Developments: The Bell Rang, and the Families Came Back

Both September events have now taken place, and the hospital has shared how they unfolded.

The private bell-ringing ceremony was held Wednesday, Sept. 23. More than a dozen children and teenagers who finished cancer treatment within the past year took part, ranging in age from 2 to 17. One at a time, they rang the bronze bell in the hospital courtyard to mark the close of treatment.

“After months — and sometimes years — of perseverance, chemotherapies, and hospital stays, pulling that rope and hearing the bell chime signify a beautiful new beginning,” said Beth Abston, the certified recreational therapist who plans the reunion. “Behind every ring is a fierce fighter, a dedicated family, and an entire medical team cheering them on.”

Four days later, on Sunday, Sept. 27, the Mapp Child and Family Life Program hosted the third annual Childhood Cancer Reunion in the same outdoor courtyard. Current and former patients returned with parents, siblings and caregivers to see the physicians, nurses, child life specialists and other team members who cared for them during treatment.

The afternoon featured arts and crafts, a photo booth, photos with the Azalea Trail Maids, a caricature artist and treats from Kona Ice. Children also got to visit with Rainier, the hospital’s first facility pet. Beyond the activities, organizers said the gathering gave young patients a chance to spend time with peers who understand what childhood cancer treatment is like from the inside.

Hospital staff said the two events served a purpose beyond celebration: keeping attention on the continued need for research, advances in treatment and care that supports the whole family.

The Third Annual Childhood Cancer Reunion

The hospital’s Mapp Child and Family Life Program will host its third annual Childhood Cancer Reunion from 3:30 to 5 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 27, in the hospital’s outdoor courtyard.

The event is open to anyone who has been part of a childhood cancer journey at the hospital — current and former patients, family members, caregivers and staff.

Activities will include arts and crafts, visits with pet therapy animals, photos with Azalea Trail Maids and a photo booth.

The purpose is reconnection. The reunion is designed to give families an opportunity to see again the physicians, nurses, child life staff and other members of the multidisciplinary team who supported them during treatment, and to let current and former patients meet one another.

“Childhood cancer often changes the lives of children and their families in ways that extend far beyond a diagnosis,” said Beth Abston, a certified recreational therapist who plans the reunion. “Raising awareness gives our community an opportunity to recognize these courageous children, support the families who walk with them and remember those we have lost. It also reminds us why continued investment in research, innovative treatments and compassionate, family-centered care is vital.”

The Bell

Later in September, the hospital will recognize more than a dozen pediatric patients who are marking the end of their cancer treatment with a private bell-ringing ceremony.

The tradition gives each child the chance to ring a bronze bell — a signal that a difficult chapter has closed and a new one has begun. USA Health has held the ceremonies each September as part of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month for more than a decade.

For children and their families, the ceremonies can carry considerable weight after months or years of chemotherapy, procedures, hospital visits and time away from school, friends and ordinary routine. Pediatric cancer treatment is measured not in days but in protocols that can run for years, and the end of treatment is a date families count toward for a long time before they reach it.

The Numbers

The National Cancer Institute estimates that 14,690 children and adolescents up to age 19 were diagnosed with cancer in the United States in 2025, with an estimated 1,650 deaths. Cancer is the leading cause of death from disease among children after infancy.

Those figures sit alongside a second set that tells a considerably more hopeful story.

According to the NCI, the cancer mortality rate among children and adolescents younger than 20 declined by more than 50% from 1975 to 2022. About 85% of children diagnosed with cancer now survive at least five years after diagnosis.

What Changed

A halving of pediatric cancer mortality over roughly five decades is one of the more substantial gains in modern medicine, and it did not come from a single breakthrough.

It came from cumulative refinement: cooperative clinical trial networks that enrolled a large share of pediatric patients and produced usable data on what worked; adjustments to combination chemotherapy regimens, doses and schedules; improvements in supportive care that made aggressive treatment survivable; better management of infection during periods of suppressed immunity; and advances in surgical and radiation technique that spared healthy tissue.

The 85% five-year survival figure is an aggregate across many distinct diseases. Pediatric cancers vary enormously in prognosis, and an average conceals both diagnoses with survival rates well above 90% and others where outcomes remain far more difficult.

Survivorship also brings its own long arc. Children who complete treatment are monitored for years afterward for late effects — cardiac, endocrine, cognitive and secondary malignancies among them — which is part of why the connection between a family and a treatment team does not end when the bell is rung.

A City Proclamation

The City of Mobile also recognized the cause. The Mobile City Council proclaimed September 2026 as Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, joining communities nationwide in drawing attention to childhood cancer and the families who face it.

Members of the care team from Children’s & Women’s Hospital attended the city council meeting to receive the proclamation.

Child Life Programs

The Mapp Child and Family Life Program, which organizes the reunion, reflects a discipline that has become standard in pediatric hospitals. Certified child life specialists and recreational therapists work on the psychosocial side of treatment — preparing children for procedures in age-appropriate terms, providing developmentally suitable play and activity during long admissions, supporting siblings, and helping families navigate the non-medical dimensions of a serious diagnosis.

The work does not change a treatment protocol. It changes how a child experiences one, which is why events like a courtyard reunion are organized by the same program that manages the hospital playroom.

Looking Ahead

The bell-ringing ceremony is held each September, and the Childhood Cancer Reunion has now been held three years running. Families whose children were treated at Children’s & Women’s Hospital can follow USA Health for announcements about future survivorship events.

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