Leading by Example: Battling Cancer and Creating Content that Inspires
In 2000, Sarah Cook was diagnosed with Ewing's Sarcoma, a rare form of cancer, and one uncommon in young children. She was 8 years old. Over the course of a year, she received chemotherapy and radiation at the Montreal Children's Hospital. She also underwent numerous surgeries, one to remove the fibula bone, where the cancer had originated, and two others to correct the alignment of her foot, including a tendon transfer and the fusing of her foot. She and her family are very grateful to the many wonderful doctors who took care of her throughout the years: Dr. Mitchell, Dr. Kavan, Dr. Isler, Dr. Fassier, and Dr. Freeman.
One night in her hospital room, Sarah decided that when she got better, she wanted to raise money to buy new pillows for the other children on the floor. "I was faced with this illness, but I was inspired to look past my own challenge and try to make a difference in the lives of the other children. I understood how hard it is, so I wanted to make it a little easier for other people in similar experiences," explains Sarah.
This is how Sarah and her parents, Lorena and Norman Cook, founded the Sarah Cook Fund at the Cedars Cancer Institute for Children. Through their special events, personal and corporate funding, as well as donations from local communities and friends, the fund has raised over $5 million. The most touching gifts have come from children who know Sarah, using their birthday parties, lemonade stands, puppet shows, races and events to raise donations for Sarah's cause. The fund has directly supported the Hematology/Oncology Division, with remarkable results including state-of-the-art upgrades of treatment rooms, research labs, the creation of "Sarah's Floor" with single rooms with bathrooms for patients, a family room, art therapy programs, a special fund for families in need, and the new Hematology/Oncology in-patient division at The Children's. "The Sarah Cook Fund is now a branch of the Cedars Cancer Institute for Children and I am very much part of it. I will be forever involved," comments Sarah.
Sarah attends Queens University in the four-year Arts and Science program, and is now entering her third year. Toon Boom is a very close friend of Sarah's, and offered her a summer internship to give her the perfect opportunity to practice her new computing and creative arts skills. "I started watching the online video tutorials for Storyboard Pro and Animate Pro to get familiar, step-by-step, with the technology," states Sarah. Once she got comfortable, she decided to animate her project using Toon Boom Harmony.
Working closely with Toon Boom's Lilly Vogelesang, Sarah embarked upon the creation of her first animation project, a very touching animated video created to promote awareness for the fund. She started drafting her characters and learnt how to build them, taking into consideration their movements and actions. "I learned the Deform tools quickly. The deformation process is very easy to use and makes animating really fast. It is nice to see the original storyboard and then the final animation. I am very pleased I created something and that I was involved from concept to compositing and final editing. It was a wonderful learning experience for me, as I have never done animation before," enthuses Sarah.
If you liked reading about Sarah's story, please share the link of her video with all your contacts. Help give the fund as much visibility as possible; it is for a very good cause!