Programs

“We’re gonna try to help as many kids as possible. It’s a promise I made to her during her last hours, and it’s a promise I’ll never break.”
— Rich Massi

Our Pillar Programs

Parking costs can add up for families of patients spending weeks in the hospital. We help to reduce those costs by providing parking vouchers for both inpatient and outpatient visits.

On average, we:

  • Distribute over 1,900 parking passes/vouchers to families each year

  • Assist over 600 patient families minimize out of pocket treatment related expenses each year

Providing fitness equipment on the oncology floor at CHOP enables therapists to help patients improve endurance and conditioning during long inpatient hospitalizations, leading to better overall health.

  • Provided 6 pieces of equipment (2 bicycles, 1 elliptical, 1 treadmill, and 2 benches)

  • Over 45 patients enrolled in the Movement as Medicine Program with approximately 500 individual movements logged (as of August 2023)

Nutrition is a critical component of treatment. Our mobile cooking cart allows medical chef educators and oncology dieticians to educate patients and their families about proper nutrition for healing through interactive cooking demonstrations.

  • Cooking demos hosted monthly at CHOP

  • All recipes are available online

  • Approx. 120-185 patient families annually

  • Food Pharmacy providing essential dry goods

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia 2026 Update

Oncology Patient Parking, Culinary Medicine, Movement as Medicine, and Food Pharmacy in 2026

Respectfully Prepared for Fight on Makenna

Fight On Makenna's dedication to supporting oncology patients and their families at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) through three core initiatives – parking relief, culinary medicine, and movement as medicine – is incredibly meaningful to all the families that benefit from these. For your consideration, we've prepared a short overview of funding needs for those areas. We are also including several opportunities related to these core areas that would not only greatly benefit from Fight on Makenna's philanthropy but also meaningfully further the organization's impact on oncology patient families.

Transportation

Oncology Patient Parking

Since the start of Fiscal Year 2026 (July 1, 2025), the Oncology Psychosocial Services Team has purchased and distributed 1,800 parking passes for families, averaging 225 passes distributed each month. As you know, the Oncology Psychosocial Services Team leads the effort in identifying patient families most in need of parking cost support. Eligible families receive up to three parking passes per week of inpatient care, and parking passes for outpatient visits are provided on an as-needed basis.

Culinary Medicine

Our key Culinary Medicine efforts are still underway! We are continuing to build the Culinary Medicine website, which we expect to launch this Spring/Summer. Additionally, we continue to work with Paige Mountain, our former medical chef educator, on a per diem basis to develop new recipes and outline a cooking curriculum for the Breakthrough Studios monthly cooking show, which we are aiming to launch in the Spring/Summer as well. Currently, we have six shows planned and are working with Child Life to pilot distributing activity kits to patients watching from their rooms to encourage engagement.

Movement As Medicine

We are currently in the planning phases of revamping Movement as Medicine. In the coming months, we hope to improve the program with support from Quality Improvement (QI) to include expanding the population to hopefully all admitted oncology patients ages three years or older, excluding Blood and Marrow Transplant (BMT) due to the BMT Bucks Program – an incentivized prize-based program. This will also include streamlining the program to make it easier for patients to enroll, enabling greater nurse and provider engagement, and capturing the impact of mobility on key hospital metrics related to fall prevention. Patients will still be able to earn prizes for milestones achieved; however, the new vision is to have fewer milestones with even better prizes. As we reimagine the program, two core tenets will remain the same. First, the patient population: we will continue to focus on those in prolonged hospitalizations, including BMT patients, as primary users of the exercise equipment, generously funded by Fight On Makenna. Second is the program's ultimate goal: to achieve a full marathon across multiple hospitalizations. The hope is that more patients will enroll, and we anticipate needing additional support for prizes, likely at the beginning of 2027.

Food Pharmacy

Since the launch of the pilot in June 2025 and thanks to Fight on Makenna, the Oncology Food Pharmacy has become an integral offering for the patient families currently being supported, reducing food insecurity for many newly diagnosed patients and their families. At present, we are focusing on the first arm of the food pantry, providing essential dry goods, with the second arm, the recipe kits for at-home meal preparation, still in development. Recipe cards are included with bags of dry goods, providing families with an easy, nutritious meal to make or to be inspired by. Looking ahead, our next goals are to provide frozen fruits and vegetables to families, explore ways to get fresh produce to families, and provide a welcome bag with essential pantry staples, such as spices and oils, to all families enrolled in the Food Pharmacy program. To sustain our current efforts, we invite Fight On Makenna to consider a gift of which would enable the Food Pharmacy to operate at its present capacity throughout 2026, with an eye toward streamlining and expanding the options available to families.