LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Gilda’s Club Kentuckiana received a $1 Million donation from Kosair Charities.
Karen Morrison is in a happy place, surrounded by children playing, children who are connected to a cancer diagnosis but able to enjoy life as any child should. “It was a very nice surprise. I cried to be honest,” Morrison said. On Wednesday Morrison was preparing for a board meeting to discuss, among other items, fundraising. It was then Kosair Charities of Louisville presented her with a check for $1 million. That money that will help Morrison continue to help families affected by cancer.
“There is a lot of sadness and fear and anxiety and we help take that monster out from under the bed and shine a big light on it say, ‘yeah, he’s pretty ugly but here are the things that we can still do,’” Morrison explained. Morrison is the president of Gilda’s Club Kentuckiana, connecting families living with the effects of cancer with a countless number of resources, therapies and communities of support. “We know that every day there are families facing cancer who don’t avail themselves of psycho-social support because they don’t even know we exist,” Morrison told a room of supporters on Thursday.
“My oldest had to deal with a lot of loss and it’s hard for a kid to kind of understand that,” Kara Underwood told Spectrum News. Underwood lost her mother to cancer in 2019. Gilda’s Club has provided bereavement support to her family ever since. “They are amazing, like everything that Gilda’s does is amazing. They have so many different types of support, whether you’re dealing with cancer yourself or whether you’re connected to it at any age,” Underwood explained.
The donation from Kosair is actually three times the amount Gilda’s Club expected, and it comes during Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. “And it will help build the confidence that we will be able to sustain the program we’re doing,” Morrison added.