It can be argued that in times of sadness, seriousness, or shock, we have to look within ourselves to find strength and courage. When Joe McDonough’s son Andrew was diagnosed with leukemia at age 14, Joe found that courage within himself, and after Andrew passed away, Joe created the B+ Foundation in Andrew’s honor and has since devoted his life to helping others.
“Andrew was a seemingly healthy freshman”, Joe explained. “He was an elite soccer player, and on a Saturday, January 27 2007, he helped his team to victory”. Following that weekend tournament, Andrew went into cardiac arrest and was soon diagnosed with leukemia. The doctor told Joe that his son would “not make it through the night”. Yet, Andrew lived 167 “bonus days” (as Joe refers to them), until July 14th, 2007 when he passed away.
“My world was crushed on that day,” Joe said. “I always thought Andrew was going to get better.” He explained that the only thing he ever wanted to be was a dad and that his children are the center of his universe.
Though a tragedy, Andrew’s death inspired a reaction of positivity rather than a response of hopelessness. Two weeks before he went into the hospital, Andrew had asked Joe, out of the blue, what his blood type was, but Joe didn’t know. It wasn’t until two weeks later, while in the hospital, that they learned that his blood type was B+, which was “so fitting”, according to Joe, because Andrew was a “happy, upbeat, positive kid”.
Shortly after Andrew passed away in the summer of 2007, Joe created the B+ Foundation with Andrew’s message at the heart of it. The purposes of the foundation were, from the outset: raising money to fund childhood cancer research, helping financially deserving families of children with cancer around the country, and spreading the message to others to “live like Andrew” and to “be positive”.
When Joe began the Foundation with his wife and daughter, he said that for them, there was no choice and that creating it was what they had to do to honor Andrew and other children afflicted with cancer. When asked if it was difficult to begin the foundation, Joe said that it was not because he and his family were “blessed with so much support from the community, and needed to pay it forward and help others”.
Forty six children are diagnosed with cancer every day, and Joe believes that it is “inexcusable that less than 4 percent of our federal funding goes to childhood cancer research”. He explained that his motivation behind the organization was “to help families who may have been potentially unable to spend more time with their children and couldn’t pay for medical care”.
The B+ Foundation is currently a national organization based in Wilmington Delaware with a regional office in Chicago, and helps families in every state across the country. And, as is expected, Joe is extremely busy with the work he is doing with the Foundation. “I’m swamped,” he admitted. “We spend a lot of time physically with families and helping kids with cancer, and are also involved with awareness and advocacy on a government level so I spend a lot of time speaking with elected officials. Our goal is to spread awareness in addition to money. We’re very very busy.”
It is particularly appropriate that the UDance event held here on campus is taking place this weekend, as Joe and the B+ Foundation helped to get that started. Joe graduated from the University of Delaware (class of 1983) and also met his wife here. Furthermore, Joe’s daughter, Ali, is a current senior here at the University of Delaware. Though the B+ is a national charity that engages in events on college campuses all around the country, Joe said that the University of Delaware is the “first and nearest and dearest” to his heart.
“Back in the 90’s,” he said, “I became very familiar with THON. So, after my son passed away, I came to a Greek council meeting at UD with the idea of trying to create a ‘thon-like’ event here on campus. There had been a small event started by Greek life but I wanted to really help make this event grow. So we booked the field house, and the outcome was terrific. The governor even showed up, there was TV coverage, and many students got involved and began to spread the word.”
Even now, Joe is still heavily involved with the UDance event on campus. “I’m on campus all the time talking,” he said. “It’s a lot of involvement and time spent on campus but it’s a great partnership. But most importantly, he added that the UDANCE event would “not be the same without our B+ Heroes”. B+ heroes are children who have cancer and are paired with University of Delaware students, sports teams, and organizations to spend time with them. There are 22 heroes at UD alone.
“That’s what makes the event,” Joe said, “when we bring these kids in and partner them with student organizations.”
Joe explained that the UDance event has helped the Foundation reach its goals on several fronts. For starters, “money has been raised that goes towards research, towards helping families, and has spread awareness.” UDance raised a total 275,000 dollars last year.
UDance has also created what Joe refers to as a “life-changing experience for students at UD” who now have a better perspective of childhood cancer. That perspective has helped them put their lives in perspective. “When bad things occur in their lives,” Joe explained, “they realize that those things aren’t as bad when they think about how tough it is to live with an illness such as cancer”.
Joe really pushes for everyone to spread awareness about not only the UDance event but about the underlying cause.
“We invite everyone to attend UDance on March 11, but we also need people to help us to seek out solicitation”.
Joe explained that helping the cause is as simple as forwarding an email to 10 or 20 people and taking that one to two minutes out of the day just to tell as many people as possible about getting involved.
“I hope in the future we can get not just students, who have set a great example in terms of involvement so far, but the university—as it relates to administration and alumni— more involved.”
Joe is an inspiration, and he and his family are living reminders that, in spite of how outwardly negative a situation may seem, it is always a virtue to be positive.