The American Cancer Society’s Special Friends Program is intended to help provide friendship and fun to pediatric cancer patients and their siblings, by pairing the kids with a student in medical school to help bond. Katie Champion, Senior Manager of Community Engagement with the American Cancer Society explained who is eligible for the Special Friends Program.

The program hosts a series of parties for the kids and students to have fun and help show the kids that doctors are people too. Champion shed light on one of the upcoming parties that the program has lined up.

Most of the parties are hosted in Springfield, and many of the families involved come from all over central Illinois. For more information on the Special Friends Program, contact Katie Champion at the American Cancer Society at (217) 523-4503.