Young Cancer Patients Leave Handprints of Hope as USA Health Marks $100,000 Grant

For 10-year-old Eva Poet, a purple handprint left on a Hyundai Thursday represented far more than her favorite color — it represented a fight her family never expected to face. Eva is undergoing treatment for B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia at USA Health Children’s & Women’s Hospital. Her mother, Emily Poet, said their lives changed in July 2025 when Eva was diagnosed while visiting her grandparents in Florida. “We’ve been through a lot,” Poet said. “It’s obviously really hard to have a daughter diagnosed with leukemia, but we’re thankful for the staff here and grateful that they are now family.”

Eva joined other children affected by cancer in placing painted handprints on a Hyundai during a Hyundai Hope on Wheels Handprint Ceremony at the hospital Thursday. The ceremony coincided with Hyundai Hope on Wheels presenting Children’s & Women’s Hospital with a $100,000 Impact Grant to support pediatric cancer research and the hospital’s pediatric oncology department. With the latest award, the organization has now provided more than $310,000 to the hospital for pediatric cancer research.

For the Poet family, the support is personal. After Eva’s diagnosis, she spent 35 days hospitalized in Florida before returning home to Alabama to continue treatment at USA Health. Her mother said Eva has spent another 38 days as an inpatient at Children’s & Women’s over the past year between scheduled chemotherapy and treatment for infections. Through it all, Poet said the hospital’s doctors, nurses and staff have become a second family. “These people love my baby girl just the way I love her,” Poet said. “They pick up the moments when I can’t do it myself or her dad can’t do it.” She added that those relationships will extend well beyond Eva’s treatment: “They’re gonna be at her graduation party in high school and everything else.”

Eva recently entered maintenance treatment, though her mother said the family still has roughly two more years of treatment ahead. More than 15,000 children are diagnosed with cancer each year in the United States, underscoring the need for research aimed at developing safer, more targeted treatments. Dr. Hamayun Imran, division chief for USA Health’s pediatric cancer program, said the grant will help fund the personnel who care for young patients. “The grant itself, it actually helps us fund the positions of the personnel that we think can really improve the quality of care that we provide,” Imran said. He noted that advances in treatment mean doctors are now caring for a growing number of childhood cancer survivors, which brings its own challenges. “Many children are living long term, and that increases the complexity of care during treatment as their survival improves, but also the care that they need in survivorship,” Imran said.

For Paul Imhoff, director of Hyundai Hope on Wheels, the mission is also personal. Ten years ago, his son was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer. “I just know what these parents are going through,” Imhoff said. His family’s experience showed him what can happen when researchers lack funding to study rare childhood cancers. “When there’s no funding for, or you have a rare cancer and there’s no funding for it, there’s no improvement,” Imhoff said. “So his disease alone … it’s been the same treatment for 50 years, with not better outcomes.” Founded in 1998, Hyundai Hope on Wheels has awarded more than 1,600 grants to 175 institutions and expects to surpass $303 million in lifetime giving toward childhood cancer research in 2026.

For Emily Poet, raising awareness is another important part of events like Thursday’s ceremony. Before her daughter’s diagnosis, she said she didn’t realize how many families face childhood cancer. “I didn’t realize how many families were dealt these cards,” Poet said. “So I think it’s great that they’re raising awareness and bringing people to the spotlight of understanding what childhood cancer is.” The painted handprints covering the Hyundai are the signature of Hope on Wheels ceremonies nationwide — each one representing a child’s fight against cancer and hope for a cure. For Eva, Thursday’s handprint was purple. For her mother, it marked another step on a journey that has turned hospital staff into family.

About the disease and the grant program

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia is the most common cancer in children, and survival has improved dramatically over the past several decades, with the large majority of children now cured. Treatment typically ends with a maintenance phase of lower-intensity chemotherapy that lasts about two years, the stage Eva has now reached.

Hyundai Hope on Wheels is a nonprofit supported by Hyundai Motor America and its U.S. dealers, which contribute to the organization with every new vehicle sold.