GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) — WTAQ hosted it’s annual Radiothon event Friday for the Families of Children with Cancer (FOCWC).
The nonprofit organization serves local families who have a child with cancer in Northeast Wisconsin and the U.P. through financial assistance and social gatherings.
FOCWC usually has at least one event every month, which is completely free for their families. Robb Collard is president of the board; he says for a lot of families, it’s almost therapeutic.
“They’ll come up to me like, ‘We didn’t know we needed this as bad as we needed this,’ They’ll say, ‘We haven’t been out of the house in four months besides appointments. We can’t wait until the next one.’”
Robb’s daughter Taylor was diagnosed with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia in 2018 at just 16 years old. Her mother Shawn Collard is secretary for the organization and said at first they thought she just had a cold…
“Then her skin was looking really gray. Dad took her into the doctor, the doctor immediately did blood work and pulled Robb into another room and said, ‘I have a hospital room ready, Taylor has cancer. I don’t know what kind, you need to call mom.’ So we went to the hospital. Our next door neighbors went and picked up our son. He didn’t really have any clue what was going on. He was nine. The cancer was 98% of her blood. They said a week earlier they would have said she had the flu, and a week later we would have lost her. She would have died.”
Luckily after two and a half years of treatment, she had her last chemo treatment in 2020 and graduated from St. Norbert College in May 2024.
While currently serving 450 local families; following the organizations humble beginnings in 1974, they had just 28 families after the first five years in 1979. While the world has changed since then, the weight of a cancer diagnosis shocks the family just the same.
Jeanette Charniak’s son John was diagnosed with leukemia when he was 10 years old in 1974; he died two years later.
“That was a very eye-opening, soul searching, crushing family experience,” said Jeanette.
When John was diagnosed, she her husband Maynard started the group Parents of Children with Cancer; which later become Families of Children with Cancer.
“I said, ‘how are these other families getting through this? There’s nobody else that has been through this that we know, so how are other people doing that?’ And Dr. Stuart Adair who was treating John looked at me and he said, ‘Would you like to meet other parents?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ And that was the very start.
It was devastating to how their families were participating in something that they really didn’t want to be into, but they knew it was important.
On top of the emotional stress comes the financial stress, which is where FOCWC provides relief.
“We provide financial assistance, we have scholarship assistance for those that reach college age. You can request financial assistance in the form of gift cards, grocery or gas, whatever your need is. Mileage assistance; about 1,500 will reimburse your mileage assistance,” said Robb.
“Not every type of childhood cancer can actually be treated here at St. Vincent. There’s really no other places locally. So some kids have to go all the way down to Milwaukee for every treatment,” added Shawn.
Since the nonprofit functions without federal or state funding, donation events like Radiothon on WTAQ have a huge impact on their families.
“It’s always such a good reaction,” said Shawn
“And many people cry; they’re so thankful. It’s tears of joy,” added Robb.
WTAQ has hosted Radiothon every year since 2006.
At the conclusion of 2025 Radiothon, $27, 215 was donated through call-in donations. Donations are still being accepted online.
Jeanette says it has a ripple effect.
“It’ll help many people who will be very appreciative, and that will be passed on down the years too,” said Charniak. “So with one person helping, three more people will be helping after that and it’ll keep growing. So if you want to give a little something, it’s worth 10 times more than that than you’ll ever realize.”
