...love comes first....

" Kassandra Okvath has battled cancer since 2003, when doctors diagnosed her with high-risk Stage III Neuroblastoma. Doctors gave her a twenty percent chance of surviving. She was seven-years old. Confined for many months in hospital, young Kassandra came to decide upon her legacy as one of hope. Cancer could very well take her at so young an age, but she would not let it define her life or its meanings –– for her everyday deeds of care, compassion, and hope would live far beyond her young years. This is how Kassandra came to dedicate herself toward improving the lives of fellow patients, children also, to help lift their spirits during the long, arduous medical treatments.

Kassandra set about to raise money for remodeling and painting the children’s Bone Marrow Transplant Unit (BMTU), creating a warmer, more hopeful space to lift the young patients’ spirits and help with their healing. To help raise money, she put together sets of beads and arranged them by color and design to create very special necklaces that would symbolize the various aspects of the struggle to overcome cancer. For instance, pink represented a cure; white pearl, the children’s courage; blue crystal evoked the tears for lost ones, clear crystal, the faith in doctors and in God. And pink crystal represented above all the power of love. She didn’t stop there, either. During her long stays of treatment, Kassandra became a fan of the Home Improvement televisions series, and she decided to seek help from the show’s staff in publicizing her necklaces as a way to raise money for improving the hospital ward. To Kassandra’s surprise and delight, the Extreme Makeover Home Edition answered her request. So many requests for the necklaces followed that Kassandra could begin not only to donate money for cancer research, but also to improve the lives of her fellow patients.

With the proceeds from her necklaces, Kassandra immediately set out to help her fellow patients. For example, she sponsored morale-boosting outings and picnics for the children and their parents at University Medical Center. In another example, Kassandra founded a non-profit organization -- Love Comes First -- to help address the emotional and spiritual needs of children struggling with life-threatening and or terminal diseases. She has undertaken yet another initiative to raise still more money for medical research and for procuring new toys, games, computers, and all manner of things and projects to help families cope during their most difficult days of their child’s hospitalization. And she has vowed to continue, even if for but for one hospital at a time, to bring a sense of warmth, care, and above all hope for young patients in their most elemental struggle to survive.

Even as Kassandra Okvath continues her daunting struggle with cancer, she also brings joy and comfort to countless other young patients and their families. She continues to make new plans, initiatives, and goals, even though she might have precious little time. Her struggle is poignant, and her drive to do good is heroic. Kassandra Okvath builds her legacy with each day she remains with us. Inspired by friends who lost their battle with cancer, Kassandra has inspired us all by giving families the happiest memories of hope, compassion, and love in the most dire of times. In doing so, Kassandra Okvath leaves us the most precious legacy of all: the will to do good as the means to live life at its fullest and most meaningful."