NORTH SALT LAKE—After losing her aunt to breast cancer in 2020, Isabella Bee asked her mom if kids can get cancer too. When her mother told her they could, Isabella decided she needed to take action. So the Foxboro Elementary sixth grader wrote a letter to the Davis School District Superintendent Dan Linford asking him to consider having all of the students in the district wear yellow on Feb. 15 in honor of Childhood Cancer Awareness Day. 

“We have Down syndrome and Martin syndrome and other awareness days so I was thinking ‘why don’t we have a Childhood Cancer Awareness Day?’” Isabella wrote in her letter. “We should bring awareness about that for kids like me that didn’t exactly know that kids can get cancer.”

At first, Isabella wanted to do breast cancer awareness because of her aunt, said Isabella’s mother Liz. “We weren’t sure if that would be a good topic for kids so we decided maybe childhood cancer is what she should focus on.”

Last year a child at Foxboro suddenly died, Liz said. “It was a young girl in third or fourth grade. They found out she had leukemia and she died within a few days. We talked about that and what she had to go through.”

Isabella came up with the idea to write the superintendent all on her own out of the goodness of her heart, said Liz. “He wrote back and said it was a great idea. He was very complimentary of her. She was so excited to get it (response).”

The district came out and filmed her for a video, she said. “They sent an email out to the whole district to talk about Isabella’s idea for a cancer awareness day and to show the video.”

“Isabella is the spokesperson at Foxboro,” said Principal Jake Hydrick. “A lot of people ordered yellow shirts with a ribbon. It’s a good cause and our school colors are black and gold. It’s a fun thing to have.”

Isabella is one of the quiet kids, he said. “She’s a deep thinker and just does her own thing. She’s not always trying to get attention. When I found out about the letter I thought that was cool.”

Superintendent Linford is so busy and has so much on his plate, said Hydrick. “I’m sure he gets emails all the time. This is the second one he’s responded to at Foxboro giving that positive attention.”

“I was also thinking everyone could write letters saying nice things and someone could go to a hospital and give the letter to some of the cancer patients,” Isabella read from her letter on the district video. 

She didn’t want kids to suffer like this, said Liz. “She wanted to do something to help and support them so they wouldn’t feel alone.”

One of the things she took out of this is that she has a voice and she can reach out to the superintendent, Liz said. “We’re so grateful for him responding to her and taking her seriously. We’re certainly so proud. We’re over the moon. She said ‘I’m going to do this’ and then took charge.”