DANIEL HOFFMAN: What my family learned from a 12-year-old about inner strength

On a Saturday day earlier this month, I had the privilege of spending prime clip with my person and Fox News workfellow John Roberts successful the astir improbable of places: the hoops tribunal astatine the Onelife Fitness successful Tysons Corner, Virginia. That’s wherever unit from the Jessie Rees Foundation led a radical of astir 100 volunteers who stuffed 3,000 Joy Jars to enactment kids successful the combat for their lives against pediatric cancer.

That’s the aforesaid fig of Joy Jars Jessie Rees distributed to children stricken with crab earlier she passed distant astatine property 12 from terminal encephalon cancer. Empathetically reasoning of different children similar her, Jessie knew however to physique a young patient’s resilience with a Joy Jar filled with gifts, toys and — due to the fact that truthful galore children suffer their hairsbreadth during attraction — hats. The Jessie Rees Foundation honors her bequest by holding Mobile Joy Jar events crossed the state and distributing hundreds of thousands of Joy Jars to children astir the world.

Jessie’s motto was "Never Ever Give Up" (NEGU).

MY LATE WIFE KIM TAUGHT ME HOW TO HONOR OUR LOVED ONES BY FOCUSING ON SOMETHING THAT WILL OUTLAST US

My sons and I person supported the Jessie Rees Foundation since my wife, Kim, passed distant from crab astir 5 years ago. We volition ever beryllium grateful to Jessie for showing america the way to philanthropy, which has helped soothe our breached hearts. We are besides profoundly thankful to the generous firm sponsors who marque this ngo possible.

We understood that this time mattered much than astir to kids warring cancer. We bonded implicit connecting with thing larger than ourselves. And we learned a profound acquisition from Jessie: The joyousness flows successful some directions — from the kid who opens the Joy Jar close backmost to the idiosyncratic who stuffed it.

John Roberts is simply a engaged man. He brought on his woman and 2 children, who nary uncertainty had plentifulness of different things they could person been doing that time but chose alternatively to articulation our mission. As did my beloved person and erstwhile CIA workfellow Alan, whom I’ve known for astir 40 years; my lad Nathan’s shot teammates and their parents; Leo, a precocious schoolhouse elder hoops prima who underwent 60 chemotherapy treatments for a benign but invasive desmoid tumor successful his back; and truthful galore different household members and friends.

Fox News contributor Daniel Hoffman and Fox News anchor John Roberts enactment successful a Mobile Joy Jar lawsuit astatine the Onelife Fitness gym hoops tribunal successful Tysons Corner, Va. connected Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026.

Nathan’s simple schoolhouse teacher, herself undergoing attraction for crab portion raising 2 young children, stuffed Joy Jars for the full three-hour greeting shift, arsenic did a ma whose lad had received a Joy Jar years agone erstwhile helium was warring pediatric cancer.

HE LOST HIS DAUGHTER TO CHILDHOOD CANCER. BUT HIS LOVE AND HER LEGACY ARE STRONGER THAN EVER

A U.S. Army serviceman who happened to beryllium moving retired successful our gym — and demonstrated the benignant of situational consciousness 1 would expect from a subordinate of the equipped services — spotted our radical and instantly volunteered. He stuffed Joy Jars each day. Married with 3 children of his own, helium took the clip to convey Nathan for his nationalist work and gave him an Army situation coin.

When I met Erik Rees earlier our archetypal Mobile Joy Jar lawsuit backmost successful 2022, we shared a heartfelt infinitesimal implicit losing our loved ones to cancer. "I miss my girl each day," Erik told me, "but she’d beryllium ace proud."

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Jessie would so person been arrogant of us, arsenic would my Kim, who told our children earlier she passed distant that she would beryllium their guardian angel, watching implicit them.

Jessie Rees brings retired the champion successful us.

Kim told our children she would beryllium their guardian angel, watching implicit them.  (Daniel Hoffman)

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That Saturday, we had a communal purpose. We understood that this time mattered much than astir to kids warring cancer. We bonded implicit connecting with thing larger than ourselves. And we learned a profound acquisition from Jessie: The joyousness flows successful some directions — from the kid who opens the Joy Jar close backmost to the idiosyncratic who stuffed it.

It’s ever a large time erstwhile I get a telephone from an "America Reports" shaper that I’ll person the grant of sharing the large surface with John Roberts and his esteemed co-anchor, Sandra Smith. But connected this day, it felt close to instrumentality clip distant from analyzing the nationalist information challenges of the time to admit and clasp our shared humanity.

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