Katy Taylor HS Goes Gold for Childhood Cancer

Katy, TX News (September 24, 2015) – In recognition of September as Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, various Taylor High School football, band, Pacesetters, cheer squad and flagmen will wear the color gold to help raise awareness.

“It’s been great to have the support of the community to help spread awareness of childhood cancer,” said Kay Curry, mother of Lilli, a 9th-grade freshman at Taylor HS who has been battling cancer for four years. Curry has been working with neighbors to spread awareness of childhood cancer. “That the staff and students at Taylor would rally around the effort in Friday’s game is amazing.”

While Taylor’s main color – blue – won’t change, the Taylor teams will add gold to their uniforms in the game Friday vs. Katy:

The football team will wear gold arm bands.
The coaches will wear gold visors.
The cheer squad will wear gold bows in their hair and gold ribbons on their socks.
The band will wear gold armbands.
The Pacesetters will use gold pompoms.
The flagmen will wear gold socks.

Earlier this month, the THS cheer squad and several local citizens wrapped gold bows around the trees in the median of Kingsland Blvd, the street that runs in front of Taylor High School and neighboring Nottingham Country Elementary.

“Currently, THS has students fighting Childhood Cancer and we also have current cheerleaders who have lost siblings to Childhood Cancer,” said Reyna Wagner, THS varsity cheerleading and flagmen coach. “That is why when this awareness and opportunity came up, the Cheerleading Program at THS wanted to spread awareness, because it has affected us at ‘home’.”

Curry is appreciative, “It’s so heartwarming to have the support of friends and neighbors for those of us impacted by this horrible disease. Childhood cancer is a lot less rare than most people think. Unfortunately, in our journey, I’ve become aware of other children impacted by cancer in the Katy area. The statistics on childhood cancer are sad.”

Those stats include:

Every three minutes, a child is diagnosed with cancer
1 in 285 children will get cancer before the age of 20
Every year, the parents of approximately 16,000 children in the US will hear the words ‘your child has cancer’
Of all the federal funds earmarked for cancer research, only 4% is directed toward childhood cancer research

Curry and neighbors also have worked this month with other schools to help spread awareness of childhood cancer in one way or another (faculty/staff wearing gold ribbons, distributing fact sheets about childhood cancer, wearing gold shirts to school, posting a message on the marquee, etc.). Some of those schools include Nottingham Country Elementary, Memorial Parkway Elementary, Memorial Parkway Junior High, Bonnie Holland Elementary and Beck Junior High.