I eagerly put my hand up to be part of the Cooper Rice Brading Foundation for a number of reasons.
Cooper was my son’s friend and cricket team-mate, and his illness and death has had a great personal impact on our whole family.
What also had a great impact on me was how Cooper faced his cancer, and how he forged ahead and set up the foundation to better outcomes for other Sarcoma suffers, even though his efforts could have no effect on his own situation. I had always thought when I had built up my company enough to finally sell it, I would then have the time and money to pursue altruistic ventures. But Cooper did this at 18, 17 when he started to work on his foundation, from his hospital bed. Many people could live to be 100 and never achieve anything like what Copper did by the age of 18. His courage and actions are truly inspirational to me and spurred me to action. If he could do that then, what am I waiting for?
3 key numbers in stick out to me: 20% of children’s cancers are Sarcomas,50% of those children die, and that the relatively small amount 16 million dollars are needed to fund identified avenues of research and trials that are making real headway in this area.
I hope my experience in business & marketing can help make a small but hopefully meaningful contribution to this most worthy of causes.