♪ Always be strong ♪ - She was determined, determined to live.

- She was cancer free.

- I feel like I was in really good hands and I can't say enough about the treatment that I got.

- Things do change, nothing stays static.

A new day will come.

(upbeat music) - Welcome to "Hope is Here."

I'm Carla Hill.

Imagine being a child fighting cancer, treatments, medications, and uncertainty fill your day.

A boy named Oliver decided to face his disease and pain with a fierce determination.

Once strong again, he was filled with gratitude because of the love and support he received during his treatment.

Yet, it was a symbolic jacket that he wore during the days of his cancer treatments that inspired him to start his own organization.

Designed to cheer up other children dealing with cancer around the United States.

This is the selfless story of "Oliver's Patch Project".

(soft music) - We had gone down to, down to the Keys for a spring break, ended up doing quarantine down there for COVID.

- I noticed that he was starting to get very pale his eyes, a lot of dark under his eyes.

And I think at that moment I sensed that maybe he was feeling sick.

I didn't know it was anything other than that, until we got home.

- He was doing like a weird breathing thing.

(Trisha gasping) (soft music) So they had done this whole barrage of testing.

So it was like the next day he was getting tested with a bone biopsy and that was it.

It was Memorial Day weekend.

So it was, it was crazy.

(soft music) - Well, really, they found out, like they said I was looking really like, pale.

So then they took me into the hospital and then I started not like, feeling good.

And then they found out I was diagnosed with cancer.

Leukemia.

- Yeah, I don't know how I felt, I just felt like, this can't be real, this can't be happening to us.

Like, I've heard of kids having leukemia.

I'd never met anybody with leukemia.

Trisha and I were upset obviously, and crying, and then we said, okay, we had to get ourselves together, because this is what we have to deal with.

- Like, I was like, well, we could stay here, I feel like it will take forever, be upset about it, or we can just accept it, try to get through with it, try to be positive like, about it.

(soft music) - So the hardest moment that I had with his whole treatment is we went back for a period of time and because he had extreme high temperature and they did everything they could, and they couldn't get it down.

So they brought in this, for lack of better words, it's like an ice pad bed.

They run cold water through it and they put it underneath him at night to get his temperature down.

And it's kind of like sleeping on a bed of ice.

And he was, he was whimpering and I wanted to hold him.

I wanted to keep him warm and I couldn't.

And this, I've never felt this way.

I never felt that way.

I couldn't, I couldn't help him.

(soft music) Yeah, that was the hardest thing.

(soft music) So we went from being in the hospital with the supportive community here to all of a sudden being a home and trying to figure out like how we can, it's quiet at home.

Like, and there was people that wanted to reach out to help us.

And from this started this amazing journey for us which has been "Oliver Patch Project".

And that's, it's amazing that something that was so hard, led to something that's so beautiful.

(lively music) - "Oliver Patch Project" is a program that we invited artists to make designs.

Those designs we make into patches.

And then we invite kids currently in treatment within the United States for cancer, to go pick out a jacket or a tote, 20 of their favorite patches, we then take those patches, we sew them on a jacket, we sew their name on everything else and then we ship it to them.

We also give their parents a box of 13 of the most common things that a child goes through in treatment.

These are all milestones.

We wanted them to know that they weren't forgotten.

- He embraces the the "Oliver Patch Project".

He wants to give kids patches he wants to help put the orders together for kids that he knows they're gonna go out.

He's just really special and he has a really good heart.

Through all of this whole cancer experience, he has never complained.

- I feel great about this project and I feel like it can only get bigger, and I feel like I hope this helps so many kids.

(upbeat music) We created it because like, so people could feel like, how I felt, like, I felt loved when I got these patches, and I was hoping other kids could feel like that too.

(upbeat music) - Joining me is Oliver's dad, Brian Burkhart, mom, Trish, and Oliver's brother, Peter, and of course the visionary himself, Oliver.

Oliver, I'm so impressed with your story and the mission of your patches.

I wanna go straight to mom and dad.

- [Brian] Okay.

- When you found out that Oliver was sick, it was during the time of the height of the pandemic and it seems like you thought it was COVID.

When did things shift for you?

- Yeah, you know, so we were kind of isolated.

His grandma and grandpa have a place in the Keys.

So we were in the Keys and we were pretty much isolated from everybody and we came back from the Keys, and we were sitting on the sofa watching TV.

And all of a sudden we noticed Oliver was breathing very heavy.

And we were like, how could we have COVID?

Like, we were totally isolated.

So at that moment we decided to go to Nicklaus Children's Hospital, which is right down the street from us.

- There's a lot of love from the hospital doctors and staff and that's really what we felt.

I mean, they were so supportive of us and what was going on with us and Haneen, our doctor Haneen Abdullah, she was the one who explained to us what Oliver's diagnosis was.

And she was just so caring and she really explained it to us in a way that we could understand and process, as much as you can understand and process a diagnosis like that.

So we love Nicklaus Children's Hospital.

- I want to introduce Dr. Haneen Abdullah, pediatric hematologist and oncologist, for kids based at Nicklaus Children's Hospital.

Dr. Abdullah, please explain the type of leukemia that Oliver had.

- Well, Oliver was diagnosed with pre B acute lymphoblastic leukemia or ALL.

And this is actually the most common cancer in pediatrics.

It's a cancer where the white blood cells begin to basically develop abnormally.

And these abnormally kind of mutated processes cause the white blood cells to develop abnormally, divide rapidly, and then overtake the bone marrow, when there is basically no more room for the normal cellular elements, like red blood cells and platelets to also develop.

So when Oliver came to us, he had very low white blood cells, red blood cells and platelets.

- I wanna talk to the patient himself.

You know, Oliver, this is your journey and earlier, before we came on set, you talked about making two choices.

What is the choice that you chose in your journey with your health?

I mean, it's pretty positive, you're wearing it kind of.

- Yeah, so I thought we could go, you can either be like down and like not feel good or you can be very positive about it and you'll feel like, well I felt like it went faster.

- That is incredible.

You know, Peter, what was that like for you when you found out that Oliver had cancer?

- I didn't know about it because they figured it out before me, and that's why, and I couldn't play with him as much often and I felt sad for him.

- One of, that's a such a touching sentiment, but it sounds like Peter, that you knew that it was really important for your brother to get well so you could play with him again, yes?

- Yeah.

- Yeah, and so Brian and Trish, you're both artists.

The creativity that you have used to help your children, both children, get through this, I mean that's a pretty serious diagnosis.

How has that creativity really helped you both get through this time?

- Well, I think the first night that, after being in the hospital for the first week, the first night we came home and I laid down in my bed, and my head started to wander.

And we knew, I was like, I can't do this.

For me, my outlet and Trisha as well, has always been a creative outlet.

So we, I just, I woke up and I was like, how can we, what can we do to use our creative outlet to kind of power through this?

And it's interesting because as Oliver said, when people reach out to us, people reached out to us and what what could they do?

And we didn't know what we could do, and we didn't realize that we needed the outreach of love, 'cause it was uncomfortable to receive the love from people.

So we put just something on Facebook like, send them, we were home, we were on the sofa and our goal was just like, if we can get him up to walk down the street to the mailbox every day, get some fresh air, like, it was as simple as that.

So we said, "Oh, maybe you could get some mail."

I mean, I always love getting mail when I was younger.

So we just put to our Facebook family, just send a patch in the mail.

And these were patches that meant a lot to the people that sent them.

We got a lot from Vietnam veterans and we got a lot from the police department, fire departments.

There was just so many amazing stories.

And they all came with an awesome letter.

- So Trisha let us know how did "Oliver's Patch Project" go from making Oliver's jacket to look awesome in this armor to, "Let's do it for other kids going "through cancer treatment?"

- First, I wanna say 2,000 patches is a lot of patches.

It's a lot of patches.

So, and they all came within 30 days.

Our mail lady would, started bringing these bins and said, "Who's Oliver and what's going on?"

And so we told her the story and so she was very invested in what was happening.

And every Saturday we would sit down, or in the evening we would sit down, and we would say, "Okay, tonight we're gonna open 50 patches."

And after opening every envelope and reading the card we would do a little video and Oliver would send a message to that person whether it was by text or Facebook.

And after opening a couple of them, I started saying, "Okay, let's keep an Excel spreadsheet, right?"

And, and then one day Oliver was opening all of these cards and he was really, I think he was just really feeling the love.

So he is opening cards and he goes, "He goes, mom, dad, "we should just really do this for other kids.

"How could we do this for other kids?"

So I'm immediately, Brian and I look at each other and we're like, "Let's talk about it."

So that was, that moment was the the beginning moment of "Oliver Patch Project", out facing and paying it forward, the love that we were receiving from people.

- How does the project work now that it's up and running?

How does it work for others?

- So first of all, "Oliver Patch Project" is free, fun, and exciting for anyone who's in, any child actively treated, in active treatment for cancer in the United States.

It's open to anyone.

And how it works, they either hear about it through social media or through a hospital partner.

And how it works is they're introduced to the program.

Each warrior gets a sign in, they get to pick out a jacket or a tote bag, 20 of their favorite patches.

And then we take those patches, we lay 'em out on a jacket, we take a photo of the jacket, and then we send it off to the seamstress.

At that point, we also embroidered their name and we sew that on and we send that to them in the mail along with the box.

We also knew from a parent's perspective, I mean when you go through this, we wanted to allow kids to have the choice.

'Cause you don't have choices, you have to follow the protocol.

If you follow this protocol the results will be this, right?

And hopefully, and that's what we knew that we wanted these kids to have a choice to decide what they were.

That they were their own, their jackets were their own personality.

So what we also knew that, as parents, you render up all that control as well.

And that's very hard as a parent, because the only thing you could do is just trust in your amazing doctors and your care, and your clinical staff.

And so what we did is also, we assigned the 13 strongest and bravest animals to a different milestone.

The 13 milestones that every child will go through, going through cancer, whether it's surgery, losing your hair, chemotherapy, surgery.

And so we made this box that we sent to the parents as well.

So for example, there's an expression, "100.4, out the door," so which a normal temperature for us that wouldn't be as big of a concern because they're so immunosuppressed that it is, suppressed, it is a big deal.

So we want the parents to grab the neutropenia patch, which is for a high fever and bring it with them.

So what they were at the hospital like, congratulations, you got a high fever.

And that really is what we wanted to elevate this and empower these kids, that something that was hard to go through, they look forward to earning it.

Like it was a notch on their belt, so to speak.

- They've accomplished, they're soldiered on, they soldiered on.

- A hundred percent, a hundred percent.

- You speak so eloquently about the project.

You've taken this on full-time.

Talk to us about that.

- Yeah, so it is, it's the most amazing experience.

All of our patches are, coming from an arts background, the arts component of this is essential for us.

We're a very art-centric company.

So do, as a 501C3, we really wanted to engage the arts as much as possible.

So all the patches, designs that you see, were made by artists just for our kids.

So no one in the world has these patches except for our warriors.

And that's something that's really important to us.

We also, for the next 12 months, we knew as parents going through this, six months into treatment it became really hard.

And it was quiet, it wasn't as many people reaching out as the beginning.

So when we knew that, when we started this, we wanted to stay with families.

So we send every child a patch and a card in the mail every month for the next year.

And with each of these cards as a fun, like, it's a coloring page and we do animations for everything.

Everything's got a QR code that leads to this really, messages of encouragement and empowerment.

- What an incredible project.

I wanna go back to Dr. Abdullah, I wanna ask you what you thought of this project and how important this type of project is for just the mental health of a patient.

- Yes, absolutely.

About, I'd say a little less than a year into the journey, Brian, Trisha, Oliver, they came to clinic one day and I had already seen the jacket with the patches on it, and I had already kind of heard about a little bit of ideas about maybe creating an organization.

And then they just pulled out everything that they had put together at that point.

And within a year of diagnosis, they already had numerous patches that their artists had designed for their organization.

They had these beautiful boxes that were also personally designed, not just your good old cardboard box that shows up in the mail.

The patches that were for when the kids accomplished different goals.

And so really it was so impressive and I told them, I said, guys, people will think of doing things, organizations, donations to give back towards the end of their treatment or after they're done but you guys just want to jump right into it.

And I was just so impressed and inspired by that.

And so I wanted to get involved as well and do whatever I could.

And so we've kind of always discussed ideas together and they were kind enough to include me on their board so that I could really take part.

And really, it's been a very important personal project for Oliver and his family as well as our medical team.

We got to find, when it first, first started the pilot patients.

Let's find five patients, they told me, that we could just see if they're interested to join and check it out and get a jacket or a tote.

Try out the QR codes online and see how they like it.

And so, we helped out we got these patients and it was really exciting.

They loved it.

And before I knew it I'd be looking down the hall and I'd say, "Hey, that's an "Oliver Patch Project" jacket.

Or I'd walk into a patient's room and that would be a great topic of conversation, "Hey, you know, you, are you wearing that?

"That's that's an "Oliver Patch Project"."

"Yeah," and they would tell me all about the patches that they had on their jacket and what different ones meant to them.

And so this really brings joy.

A lot of my job is giving difficult news, is giving teaching for the patients, for their families.

Sometimes there are tears, sometimes there's joy, and excitement and kids thankfully are resilient and loving and they keep us doing what we do.

But this is an opportunity for us to have some fun and us, from the physicians, nurses, the medical personnel, and all the way of course to the patients and their families.

I love the joy that this organization brings and I'm just excited to see all the things that they're doing now and what they'll do in the future.

- And Dr. Abdullah, you do get to deliver good news quite frequently.

And I wanna talk about that ringing of the bell.

I remember that Brian confided in you that he was a little nervous about ringing the bell.

Can you tell our audience what the significance of ringing the bell is?

- Yes, that is quite a moment.

And I tear up because every time, it just makes us stop and look back.

My daughter was at work last week for "Take Your Child to Work Day," and she saw the bell, on that wall and she said, "What does this mean?"

And, "Can I ring it?"

And I said, "Nope."

I said, "Don't touch that."

I said, "That is for the patients with cancer "that got that treatment that had to deal "with the difficult times, that had to deal "with the treatments and all of the struggles "and challenges and the beautiful moments that come from it.

"They're the ones that get to ring that bell."

And we read the poem next to the bell so that she could understand that.

And you know, it says, "Ring that bell three times well.

"Its toll to clearly say the fight is done "and we are on our way."

And so it's just such a beautiful moment to see our patients.

All the process, you're trucking through, you're just wanting to get through every single piece and bringing the light that you can, especially as the amazing children that they are and the families like Oliver's that they bring to their journey.

And when you get to that moment, when you get to watch your patient ring that bell, there's nothing like it.

♪ You're done with your chemo ♪ ♪ You're done with your chemo ♪ ♪ Now twist and shout twist and shout ♪ ♪ Now you're finally done you're finally done ♪ ♪ And you did so good you did so good ♪ (group cheering) ♪ You finished all your chemo ♪ ♪ And we get to say woohoo woohoo ♪ ♪ Although we love to see you ♪ ♪ You're finally done today ♪ ♪ It's time to ring that bell ♪ ♪ So we can send you on your way hey ♪ (group cheering) (bell ringing) - Dad, how is Oliver doing today?

Oliver's doing amazing, we're now currently in remission and he's doing fantastic.

Oliver, how do you feel?

- I feel amazing currently.

It's nice not going to having treatments, but I do miss my doctors, which I think of as my friends at the hospital.

- Absolutely, what a wonderful thing to say, 'cause sometimes people are afraid of doctors, sometimes kids are afraid of doctors.

But it sounds like you've made some really great relationships that are gonna last a very long time.

You've made a great impression.

So Peter- - Yeah?

- How are you feeling now that Oliver is doing well again?

And what are some of the things that you like to do together?

- I'm great that he's, I feel great that he's feeling well now and I like to play with him a lot and then we could do that more often.

- So Oliver, looking at the future, what do you see for yourself and what are your goals for the patch project?

- I think I will probably feel much better as I grow up.

And what I, my plans for the patch project is first, I would like to make sure every kid in the United States that's going through treatment will get a jacket or a tote bag.

And after the United States I would eventually like to give every kid who's going through treatment in the world, I would like to do this all around the world.

- That is a fantastic plan.

You've done so much already, I think that's totally doable.

I'm really proud to get to know you and your family and Dr. Abdullah.

I wish you the best of luck for whatever you wanna do.

Such good work is happening.

You have an amazing support system, an excellent doctor, and a wonderful family.

So thank you all for joining us today.

- Thank you.

- And sharing your hope.

- Thank you, thank you everyone.

- [Oliver's Family] Thank you for having us.

- Thank you.

(upbeat music)