Walk With Sally’s 2020 Mentor of the Year Award
Walk With Sally is honored to announce our 2020 Mentor of the Year!
Maurice has become a fixture in our community and has been an incredible mentor and supporter of WWS! Thank you for all that you do Maurice!
Bonded by Cancer
Maurice lost his stepfather to liver cancer when he was 15. Deeply impacted by the loss, Maurice shares, “Cancer doesn’t just hurt one person it hurts the entire family… There’s an emotional and financial toll on the entire family.”
In December of 2017, Maurice was matched with his mentee, Luke who was 8 years old at the time. Luke also lost his dad, watching him battle Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma for 2.5 years when he was 2.5 years old. He then lost his grandmother, one of his primary caregivers, to lung cancer in June 2017. His mother wanted someone to “be a friend for Luke. Someone that supports him and wants to hang with him. A person that will help build him up”. And that’s exactly what Maurice has been for Luke.
Two peas in a pod, Maurice and Luke spend a lot of time together and are regulars at WWS events. This year, they attended Friendship Activities at Mychal’s Learning Place, Surf Day, and ice skating at LA Live. They also attended the Heart to Home activity making memory boxes in November and the kayaking partner activity with Algalita in May. They love staying active and having fun together. Luke’s mother, Michele, has seen the impact that Maurice has had in their lives, sharing “Maurice is an awesome mentor. I am so happy that we were all brought together through the WWS community; He will forever hold a special place in my heart and will always be considered family.”
In addition to mentoring, Maurice has gone above and beyond in his support for the WWS community by fundraising and serving as a Team Captain for our Friendship Bowl fundraiser for 2 years in a row and attending WLWN in 2019. Thank YOU Maurice for being an outstanding member of our Walk With Sally community and we are so happy to select you as our 2020 Mentor of the Year!
If you or someone you know is interested in making a difference in a child’s life who has been impacted by cancer, click below to get started on your path to becoming a mentor like Maurice. Just 6-8 hours a month could mean the world to a child like Luke.
