A Foundation Built on Love: How Jackie Didio Turned Grief Into a Lifeline for Families Fighting Pediatric Cancer

Jackie Didio remembers the small moments most vividly. The swings. The bubbles. The way her twin daughters would laugh together. Those 14 precious months with both Maddy and Hannah were filled with the beautiful, ordinary chaos of motherhood, and an extraordinary battle that no parent should ever face.

A day before her daughters' four-month checkup Maddy was taken to urgent care. After hours of tests and scans, doctors delivered the words that shattered their world: "Your baby has cancer."

What followed was a journey that would test everything Jackie and her husband Dan knew about love, resilience, and community. They became ships passing in the night, trading off days and nights between the hospital with Maddy and home with Hannah. Jackie left her position as Executive Director of a nonprofit preschool immediately, an immunocompromised baby and germs wouldn't mix, especially during COVID. Dan kept working, his company surrounding them with support and benefits they desperately needed.

But it was their community's response that Jackie says saved them. Friends started a GoFundMe and meal train. Businesses donated duplicate toys so Maddy could have the same playthings at the hospital that Hannah had at home. Long-time friends who were also navigating childhood cancer with their own daughter called to offer guidance. Strangers became family. Nurses and doctors became family.

"Our community loved us and loved our girls and made sure that we could spend precious time together," Jackie reflects. "It's something that we will always remember…the feeling of overwhelming kindness and generosity."

Their family moved twice in pursuit of hope, first from the DC area to Philadelphia for Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), then to New York City for a final trial. Family members left jobs and relocated with them, doing whatever it took to keep everyone together. When Maddy passed away in August 2022, Jackie took a helicopter ride back after a grueling surgery while family and friends drove and flew from miles away to be there for Maddy's final hours.

Jackie says she learned early in her motherhood journey, which began after struggles with infertility, that the only thing we can truly control is our attitude. That lesson became her anchor through unimaginable pain. And it revealed something else: a calling.

"When Maddy passed away in August of 2022, we knew what that fierce and feisty girl would want us to do: help families who did not have the strength of community we felt; who because of a flip of a coin did not have our privilege in life to step away from a job; who needed someone to come in and say 'we understand, we can support you.'"

On September 14, 2022, just one month after losing Maddy, Jackie and Dan founded the Madelyn James Pediatric Cancer Foundation around a friend's kitchen table. It was a moment of clarity born from grief: families battling pediatric cancer need something to hope for, and they could provide it.

The foundation exists to provide deep, wrap-around financial and emotional support specifically to families with babies facing cancer. Because as Jackie learned firsthand, 42% of parents leave their job upon their child's diagnosis, often losing half their household income at the exact moment they need it most.

For the first two years, Jackie didn't take a salary, pouring everything into defining the mission while juggling consulting work on the side and being present for Hannah. The guilt was constant—feeling like she wasn't doing enough for either her daughter or the families counting on Madelyn James. It's a tension she still navigates.

"I also struggle with this one because it's both my identity as a mom and also a new identity I'm still discovering," she admits.

But Hannah, now four, understands the mission in her own way. "My mom works for the Madelyn James Pediatric Cancer Foundation. For Maddy!" she announced proudly at this year's Philly Bow Bash, the organization's annual gala.

Three and a half years in, the foundation has supported 10 children across 9 families in 7 states, recently surpassing raising $585,000 over three years milestone. But for Jackie, it's about so much more than the numbers. It's about families being able to stay in their homes, get their children to treatment on time, pay insurance premiums, and most importantly, stay together during the hardest days of their lives.

Hospitals across the country now reach out weekly, asking if Madelyn James can expand to their sites. The model works. Families are graduating from the program and building amazing lives despite unimaginable hardship.

Looking back on those 14 months with both girls together, Jackie says what they treasure most are "the small, normal moments of being together. The swings, the bubbles, the laughs, the donuts, the mac-n-cheese, the books, the naps, the snuggles and the walks—together."

That's what Madelyn James fights for: the gift of presence, of being together, of not having to choose between your child's treatment and keeping a roof over your family's head.

"Because," Jackie says, "we imagine a world where no family has to decide the fate of their child based on where they live, how much money they make, or how they identify. Every child has an equal right to a cure. Every family has the right to stay together."

You can support the Madelyn James Pediatric Cancer Foundation's mission by donating or joining their Bow Society at www.madelynjames.org. Follow their journey at @madelynjamesfund. Stay tuned for details on this year's DC Bow Bash, Philly Bow Bash, and new panel events in March and September.