In the Inland Northwest, the words no parent wants to hear—your child has cancer—often carry families not only into the uncertainty of treatment, but into Spokane itself. Sacred Heart Children’s Hospital is the regional center for pediatric oncology, serving a vast footprint that stretches across northern Idaho, western Montana, and rural Washington. Families from Kalispell, Missoula, or Coeur d’Alene pack their cars, uproot their schedules, and drive hours into the city for care. Many arrive bewildered, frightened, and already burdened with the weight of impossible questions: How will they balance work and treatment? How will they pay their bills? How will their child endure?
For more than a decade, the Childhood Cancer Coalition has been a quiet constant in this landscape of upheaval. Led by Executive Director Leslie Woodfill, the Coalition exists to offer the one thing families most need but rarely expect: steady, practical, human support.
Woodfill describes the first moments after diagnosis with visceral clarity. “You tell a parent that their child has cancer, and you can literally see the air sucked out of the room,” she says. It is a shock that reorganizes everything in an instant. That is why the Coalition’s family navigators, Denise and Lindsay—both mothers who once walked the same terrifying path—are embedded at Sacred Heart every single day. They are not doctors or social workers. They are guides. They know what it means to watch your child hooked up to an IV drip, to live for months on cafeteria food, to calculate whether you can make the rent now that your job has been put on hold. Parents exhale for the first time when they meet them. They know they will not be alone.
The Coalition’s work extends far beyond the hospital corridors. When a parent has to quit working to sit at their child’s bedside, emergency assistance can cover rent or a heating bill. Grocery cards and gas stipends help families who must travel hours for each appointment. Beyond logistics, there is the irreplaceable gift of community. Summer picnics and holiday gatherings bring together children in treatment with survivors and their families. A child midway through chemotherapy might look across a table and see another who once endured the same ordeal and is now healthy and thriving. That recognition—you made it, maybe I can too—is its own kind of medicine.
For families whose journeys end in grief, the Coalition remains a presence too. Parents who lose a child are never left behind. They are invited back for remembrance events and find themselves welcomed into a community that honors their children’s names, faces, and stories. The Coalition is not just about survival—it is about dignity, presence, and acknowledgment in every season of the journey.
All of that, however, requires resources, and the Coalition’s principal fundraiser is its annual Light the Way Gala, held this year on September 27, 2025, at the Spokane Convention Center.
Registration to bid virtually is free and easy at cccnw.org.
This year’s theme transforms a familiar metaphor. If a cancer diagnosis feels like stumbling into a dark and frightening forest, the gala reimagines that forest as one illuminated by fireflies. Guests will step into a room lined with tree silhouettes, lanterns, and greenery, a woodland brought indoors. Silent-auction tables will wind like forest paths. On stage, glowing outlines of children reaching toward the light will shimmer with fireflies, symbols of both fragility and endurance. It is at once beautiful and sobering, a reminder that joy and grief, hope and heartbreak, always walk together.
The evening program blends solemnity with celebration. An “honor banner” will bear the names of children who have died, read aloud so they are never forgotten. Families will share their stories: a mother from Moses Lake who lost her son, another whose child would pick toys for his siblings after every hospital visit instead of for himself. A bell-ringing ceremony will recognize children who have completed treatment. In another cherished tradition, the Golden Heart Award will be presented to a nurse chosen by families for extraordinary compassion and care.
The auction is both centerpiece and lifeline. Items range from Pacific Northwest adventures—Seahawks tickets, Oregon Coast vacations, a Montana getaway—to unique Spokane experiences like a glass-blowing workshop. A live puppy has become a beloved, boisterous highlight of bidding wars. Mystery bags, each worth at least $100, offer wine, local goods, and small luxuries. These items may look like indulgences, but their meaning is more profound. Every paddle raise, every silent-bid slip, becomes fuel for rent assistance, gas vouchers, or a Christmas gathering where a child undergoing chemo can see Santa without the risk of infection.
For those unable to attend in person, the Coalition has made participation seamless. Anyone can register to bid online for free through cccnw.org, browsing the auction catalog and joining in from home. Donating is just as easy, with options to make a one-time gift or set up recurring support directly through the website. Woodfill emphasizes that this accessibility matters: the work doesn’t stop after gala night. Families face crushing expenses year-round, and with the holiday season fast approaching, financial pressures weigh even heavier. Keeping the lights on, making sure there’s food on the table, buying gifts for siblings—all become harder when treatment requires everything a family has.
“It’s an event like no other,” she says. What makes it singular is not only its elegance—the lanterns, the décor, the fine dining—but its honesty. Guests are asked to look directly at the hardest truths of childhood cancer, to sit with stories of both grief and survival, and then to transform that witness into action.
The Coalition was founded on the belief that no family should walk through childhood cancer alone. The Light the Way Gala is more than a fundraiser; it is an affirmation of that belief. For the families who find themselves in that dark forest, it is the promise that there will always be fireflies to guide them forward.
Light the Way Gala | September 27, 2025 | Spokane Convention Center
Tickets, online bidding, and donations: cccnw.org
