In August, the children being treated in outpatient oncology at Hospital Escuela in Tegucigalpa, Honduras received more than the life-saving medication the N.C.C.S. has been providing since 2000—they received fun and surprises, too. Michele Scherpenberg, Vice President of the Global Outreach Program for The National Children’s Cancer Society (N.C.C.S.), presented them with gifts of coloring books and crayons which were an instant hit! Five-year-old Ivan flashed a big smile of thanks, took out a new red crayon and immediately started coloring the very first page of his new book.

The Global Outreach Program was instituted in 1993, and since that time has distributed more than $215 million in cancer-fighting medications and medical supplies to 35 different nations. Other types of essential medicine, like antibiotics, are also distributed. Scherpenberg traveled to Tegucigalpa on a due diligence mission to evaluate the N.C.C.S. Global Outreach Program and to ensure that the distribution system in place is appropriate.  These medications are distributed through the Fundacion Hondurena Para El Nino Con Cancer (Foundation for Honduran Children with Cancer) which was established in 1982 by a group of women volunteers so that no Honduran child would die from cancer due to a lack of medications.

In association with the Foundation, the N.C.C.S. has helped more than 1,500 pediatric oncology patients at the hospital. An aging, multistoried building, it is in a general state of disrepair with the exception of the Pediatric Oncology areas. They are the bright spots; clean and well maintained and are decorated with colorful murals. Dr. Ligia Fu, a physician in the hospital's pediatric oncology department, says she and the other doctors and nurses at Hospital Escuela could not help the children diagnosed with cancer without the Foundation. For most families, the hospital is the only chance for their child to receive complete cancer treatment and the only hope for their child's survival. The hospital is the main public facility which serves the poorest of the poor in Honduras and people come from all over the country to get free or inexpensive medical care.

People like 14-year-old Dulce.

Dulce is an 8^th grader who was diagnosed with lymphoblastic leukemia earlier this year and is undergoing outpatient cancer treatments. On this hot August day she and her family drove an hour-and-a-half from their home in Danli so she could get chemotherapy. Dulce now has hope for survival and a future and says she wants to be a doctor because of the impression her cancer doctors have made on her. When the IV bag containing the chemotherapy drug is empty, they will drive home again. Some patients and their families drive eight hours to get to the hospital for the cancer treatments.

The Pediatric Oncology doctors told Scherpenberg they are very grateful that the N.C.C.S. and other charities are able to donate cancer drugs which they desperately need to treat their young patients. “We have a lack of medications,” said Dr. Armando Pena, another of the hospital's pediatric oncologists. He and the other doctors say the Honduran government cannot provide all of the pharmaceuticals they need to treat the children. The government’s primary health focus is on treating the diseases which affect the general population such as dengue fever, malaria, and cavitary tuberculosis (TBC).

With the help of the N.C.C.S. and other international charities, many more children like Dulce will receive the chemotherapy drugs and other medications they need to survive cancer, and the hope they need to make plans for the future.