How Fighting All Monsters Is Helping Cancer Patients’ Families Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

Celebrity insider and FAM founder Milk Tyson is having his busiest year yet. Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Fighting All Monsters has broken its own records but continues to raise and distribute funds while creating meaningful experiences and connections for families. But it’s all part of his mission to emulate the inspiring grit, perseverance, and fight of children battling cancer.

Fighting All Monsters (FAM) is a nonprofit organization that assists children with cancer and their families. As it rolls into its second year of operation, FAM is determined to go full speed ahead on its mission to bring quality support to families with children facing life-threatening challenges. The nonprofit has since raised over $1 million dollars, with each dollar going directly to families in need.

Though there are hundreds of cancer foundations, there’s nothing quite like FAM. A typical nonprofit would have strict requirements, requesting piles of personal details, paperwork, and prejudiced hoops to jump through just to get children with cancer the life-saving assistance they need.

On the other hand, FAM understands that time is of the utmost importance to families fighting cancer, so the organization requests only a one-time introduction form that can qualify them for lifelong support. These candidates are then brought to a “For Moms, From Moms” panel consisting of bereaved mothers, mothers in the depths of their child’s active treatment, and survivor’s moms. These mothers make up the committee that oversees referrals and all new families who come to the foundation.

Additionally, FAM appeals to donors who want to get donations directly to families—not go through hoops of red tape. It is not unheard-of for the team at FAM to receive an emergency request and have much-needed funds in that family’s hands the very same day.

The nonprofit has donated hundreds of new iPads to kids in treatment while keeping their families’ lights on, their mortgages and rents current, and their cars on the road. FAM has paid for accommodations and flights to facilitate life-saving treatments. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the nonprofit has gone the extra mile to provide emergency relief to countless families in need.

Gearing for the holidays, the organization is on track to repeat a thirty-family $30,000 giveaway in September and a hundred-family “Christmas Will Never Be the Same” $100,000 giveaway in December.

FAM kids were famously featured on the Ellen show in February to dance with Diddy and hosted an afterparty to celebrate in the Hollywood Hills with special guests, including David Dobrik and the Vlog Squad.

Milk Tyson aims to keep FAM a consistent force of support for families of children with cancer. As an industry disruptor, he knows that the majority of cancer foundations cannot keep operating with the same outdated formula for enticing donors and red tape that keeps millions of life-saving donations locked away or delayed. In the future, he aims to be able to relieve families of financial stressors for months at a time. In the future, FAM also plans to support families’ mental health by giving them access to appropriate therapies and platforms to connect families going through the same experiences.

Read more about Fighting All Monsters on its website. Stay updated on the organization’s latest projects through their Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts.

Magdalena’s Daughters Promotes Healing, Hope, and Empowerment Among Young Survivors of Sex Trafficking

Human trafficking, today’s modern form of slavery, continues to impact the lives of millions of people. This hundred billion dollar industry has victimized women, men, and children, and the horrors that come with sex trafficking, forced labor, forced marriage, and more, demand a corresponding comprehensive set of services designed for prevention, rehabilitation, and recovery. 

One of the most integral services in trafficking survivor protection and assistance is the provision of specialized homes. However, in San Bernardino, California, for example, there are no specialized residential placements for female foster youth who are victims or are at-risk of sex trafficking. The result of its 2018 Children’s Network Congregate Care Needs Assessment showed that the county is in dire need of bed availability, along with other specialized services for this population. 

This gap lies at the core of the establishment of Magdalena’s Daughters, a non-profit organization founded in 2018 that aims to provide a solution to the lack of available placements for the youth to live in. Its focus on foster youth who have been removed and placed from one home to another is in recognition of their vulnerability to sexual exploitation and their exposure to other circumstances that may reinforce the trauma that they have had. 

Although Magdalena’s Daughters currently does not have any homes yet, they are working to offer housing opportunities and increasing bed availability for the San Bernardino area in the next couple of years. 

More notably, it seeks to address the different driving forces behind the commercial sexual exploitation of young individuals. Not only will Magdalena’s Daughters offer intensive therapeutic services to facilitate healing and trauma recovery, but it will also promote overall quality of living by encouraging healthy relationships and setting in place a family-oriented environment for its target clientele.

This family set up is particularly essential for the youth as it hopes to deliver a healthy model of how to develop non-toxic connections with others, a skill that will be instrumental as they become adults. Aside from this, a sense of safety will also be nurtured through education centered on safety skills intended to prevent future victimization. In addition, Magdalena’s Daughters also plans to prioritize individual needs during treatment, encourage creativity, teach life skills, and expose foster youth to various careers.

Ashley Hill stands at the helm of this cause-oriented institution. She is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who has worked with foster youth for five years and a state-certified human trafficking advocate, who has provided case management and therapeutic services for foster youth in group homes and foster homes. 

As a former case manager to victims of sex trafficking, she has witnessed firsthand the factors in play that lead the youth to fall into the vicious cycle of sexual exploitation. And not only has Ashley noted for herself the lack of residential setting, but she has also observed a general need for an improvement in the services given to those at-risk. 

Right now, Magdalena’s Daughters is raising funding for a pilot study exploring foster youth in the face of commercial sexual exploitation, and at the same time, is raising more awareness about trafficking in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

With its mission to provide intensive therapeutic residential services, life skills, and education to transform the lives of sexually exploited and at-risk female foster youth, Magdalena’s Daughters is addressing an issue that has not received the amount of attention it deserves globally. And through its programs and services geared toward prevention, rehabilitation, and recovery, it hopes to be a place of healing and hope for survivors.

Learn more about Magdalena’s Daughters by visiting its website and Facebook page.