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This event supports the Excellence in Child Health Fund, which supports the most urgent health needs of children in BC today. Through a continued investment in research, education and care we are making progress in our mission to improve the lives of BC's kids. Contributions to the Excellence in Child Health Fund will go to the areas of greatest need, providing the essential services, critical research and advanced technology necessary to make leading pediatric care accessible to our province's one million children.

BC Children's Hospital, Sunny Hill Health Centre for Children and the Child & Family Research Institute all serve the medical needs of children in BC. But leadership in child health care requires more than excellence in clinical care alone. Ours is the only multicentre child health-care facility of its kind in BC, dedicated to providing the best pediatric clinical care, research and education to children and families across the province. At these three facilities, we work together to provide specialized clinical care that enhances the quality and delivery of treatments through innovative research programs while training the medical professionals of tomorrow.


Festival of Trees Champion Child - Molly Campbell

Two days before Christmas in 2010, Rebekah Campbell of Victoria was busy shopping for last-minute stocking stuffers for her family. It was an exciting time for the Campbells because their youngest child, Molly, would be celebrating her very first Christmas.

On Christmas Eve baby Molly, who had been fighting a cold, experienced a dramatic spike in her body temperature. With four other children, Rebekah and her husband Dave were no strangers to colds and fevers but because of Molly’s young age, they decided to take her to their local hospital. After running a blood test, doctors informed the couple that their 28-day-old baby girl had acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The family’s world instantly turned upside down.

Molly and her parents were immediately airlifted to BC Children’s Hospital. Rebekah and Dave were in shock, trying to grasp how someone so tiny could possibly have cancer. When they arrived at Children’s, Molly underwent immediate emergency surgery to insert a tube directly into her heart to prepare her for chemotherapy. Molly stabilized after the operation and began her long and painful treatment to eradicate the leukemia that was quickly taking over her body.

Molly is one of the youngest leukemia patients caregivers at the hospital had ever seen. Even though cure rates for childhood cancer have improved dramatically over the past 20 years, the particular type of leukemia that Molly had is a much more difficult kind to treat. This, along with her very young age, made her treatment precarious.

At seven months old, Molly received a bone marrow transplant. Thanks to the world-class oncologists, the incredible care she received at BC Children’s Hospital and 100 days after transplant, Molly was finally able to go home with her family to Victoria – for the first time after a long 10 months in Vancouver.

Sadly, Baby Molly, who turned two in November, recently relapsed. Her leukemia has returned and she is back in BC Children's Hospital. Our thoughts are with Molly and her family.