Brave Gowns

09/30/2026

Hi!

Addi doesn’t know how close she is to her goal, and with just a few hours left, I would love your help giving her a beautiful surprise.

Over the past year, she has endured so much loss. Her favorite dog, her baby niece, her uncle and her grandpa. Yet through her own heartbreak, Addi continues to bring joy and hope to other children. She has fierce faith and believes she can better the world.

Now, she is fewer than 100 Brave Gowns away from her goal of 890, one for every day she spent in active cancer treatment.

For over a decade, I’ve poured my heart into Brave Gowns, building it from my kitchen table in memory of my little brother Mac. Children like Addi have become the heartbeat of this mission.

She has spent years advocating for other kids, helping gift thousands of gowns and hand-delivering them with her family to hospitals up and down the East Coast all while going to medical appointments along the way. Together, her family has leaned on God and continued giving so much of themselves.

Today, I want to give some of that love back to her. I want to be able to message her family and tell them she hit her goal!

Will you sponsor a gown to help Addi reach 890? Each one brings comfort to a child in the hospital, allows them to be a kids and brings Addi one step closer to seeing what her kindness has inspired.

If you can’t sponsor, please share her mission. You never know who might see it and decide to help us finish these final gowns.

Thank you for believing in Brave Gowns, for believing in Addi, and for walking this journey with us.

With gratitude,
Summer

To support the last day of Childhood Cancer Month and Addi’s Journey please click below! Let's remind her how good the world is!

https://www.bravegowns.com/products/addis-journeys-mission

09/29/2026

This is me and my little brother, Mac in 1994. 💛

On Halloween 2001, at ten-years-old, Mac was diagnosed with leukemia. For the next year, the hospital became our world. We filled his room with laughter and made as many days as we could Mac’s days. He was funny, stubborn, and so much more than pediatric cancer.

Losing him changed my life. Brave Gowns began with a promise I made to go back into those hospital rooms and help other children feel like themselves, even on the hardest days.

If you’d like to know the boy behind Brave Gowns and why I can never unsee what children endure in the hospital and why I fight with all I have to help where I can.

I'd love for you to read Mac’s story and my why. ❤️

https://www.lovewhatmatters.com/woman-shares-younger-brothers-battle-with-leukemia/ #

09/29/2026

We need everyone to jump in beside us in faith and prayer. We need to storm heaven on Ezra’s behalf. We need prayers for him far and wide.
We are desperate.

I have to keep this short so please give me grace.
Ezra is experiencing a loss of short term memory. It is severe. Despite my concerns the neurosurgery team discharged him before lunch and wouldn’t take my concerns seriously.

The oncology team had a full day of clinic visits and I finally heard from our oncologist at 4:40 PM. After discussing his lingering headache, the memory loss, total change of personality and how much fear he is in— they begged us both (driving separate cars) to do a U-turn. We were almost to the SC line under Charlotte.
We have arrived at the Emergency room, they were called ahead and we are running a full stroke alarm protocol.

Please pray Ezra has not had a stroke that would explain these symptoms, that would be very grave, I will not repeat what I was told on the phone. Please pray that they find nothing and that this is resolving and due to medications from surgery.
Please pray. Please pray. Please sound all the alarms.
I speak life over Ezra. I call his memory back to him. I know the plans the Lord has for Ezra, He has already done so much so I need this situation to get on that level.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the LORD Forever.”
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09/28/2026

Long before I created Brave Gowns, I created Trust Journals with my daughter. We had put tens of thousands in Boys and Girls Clubs across the country and then life happened and Brave Gowns started to grow. After losing my little brother Mac to Leukemia, I knew what the gift of time and my children meant. I tried to hang on to their every moment for so long and wanted to protect them from every worry.

My son, Ryder, was a gentle soul and an open book. He came to me for everything. My daughter was a feisty little thing. Mac named her “Ocean” before he went to heaven, but we called her Tsunami! As a parent, I knew how strong-willed she was and I didn’t want to break her spirit! Out in the world, she was this happy, smiley little blonde. But when she came home, I could tell she was carrying little things she didn’t know how to say out loud. She was proud. She wanted to handle things on her own. I understood that because I was the same way.

Growing up, my mom reacted to everything. Every little thing felt like a big thing because she wanted to fix it. So instead of talking, I learned to hold everything in. I carried things that no child should ever have to carry. By the age of nine, I had already been on Oprah twice.

I knew there had to be a better way.

I never wanted my daughter to feel like she had to carry life’s hard moments alone. More than anything, I wanted to build trust while the problems were still small, so when life eventually got bigger, the trust was already there.

That’s why the Trust Journal was created.

It actually sat on her bookshelf for a long time before she ever wrote in it. I’ll never forget seeing that she had put the Trust Journal on the foot of her bed for the first time. My first thought was, Dear God... what did I sign up for? It was a zinger. Every instinct in me wanted to react, ask questions, or fix it. But I didn’t.

Instead, I watched the weight lift off her shoulders.

Somehow, the journal became her little "get out of jail free card." It definitely wasn't the original intention, but these were the problems of a ten-year-old, and she knew she had a safe place to tell me the truth without fear of my reaction.
So I never reacted.

Over time, something amazing happened.
Within about a year, she stopped writing in the journal because she no longer needed it. We had built enough trust that we could simply talk.
That was always the goal.

It wasn't always easy. There were moments when I wanted to jump in and fix everything. But I had signed up for this. I never wanted her to look somewhere else when what she really needed was her mom.

Fourteen years later, Ocean has graduated from college. I'm sure there are still things I don't know, but for the most part, we still live by the unspoken rules of the Trust Journal. These days, I sometimes have to beg her to stop talking... LOL.

Thankfully, the trust is still there.
I'm so grateful she was brave enough to write in that journal for the very first time.
Protecting the spirit of a child is everything.

Our hope is that when we help children through the little things, they'll never have to carry the big things alone.

What Happens in this Journal, Stays in this Journal!

This season, all net proceeds from every Trust Journal sold will go toward putting Brave Gowns on kids for Halloween, in Mac's honor and in honor of our 10-year anniversary!

Trust Journals come in two versions, one for boys and one for girls, so you can choose the right fit for the child in your life.

Every journal helps a child feel brave on a night that changed everything for our family. Thank you for helping us turn Mac's Diagnosis Day into something good!

https://www.bravegowns.com/collections/trust-journals

09/17/2026

How adorable is Beckett in his wizard-themed Brave Gown? Moments like these are what we do together through the gift-a-gown program. Thank you for helping and being here. Everything we do is for kids.💛

From Beckett’s mom:

“Beckett had his MRI today and first time wearing his brave gown. He said it was so comfy and loved that it wasn’t the ties.

Beckett is now nine-years-old, but was diagnosed with low grade glioma brain cancer at the age of 6. Beckett had been fighting ever since on three different treatments to keep his tumor stable as it is not operable, and not curable. He has MRIs every 3 months and does overnight visits in the hospital sometimes, so having this gown will be so comforting to him.

MRI days are always long and hard. Lots of anxiety. Beckett now must stay awake through his whole 3 hour MRI of his brain and spine. Thank you for making MRI days a little better

09/09/2026

I waited and waited for Childhood Cancer Awareness Month this year. I was ready to give it everything I had.

We have an incredible matching donor willing to match up to 2,000 Brave Gowns as we head toward Brave Gowns’ 10-year anniversary and Halloween, the day my brother was diagnosed with cancer.

I’m less than 40,000 Brave Gowns to raising a million, which seems like it could really happen.
I had plans. I had posts ready in my head. I thought I would hit September running.

And then September came, and I just froze.
It was like all the wind had been taken out of me.
For ten years, Brave Gowns has brought some of the most incredible children and families into my life. And as I started looking through their pictures, trying to figure out what I wanted to share this month, I saw too many real moments. Too many hospital rooms. Too many treatments. Too many little faces I love who are no longer here.

And I realized again that childhood cancer isn’t really a month.
For these families, it’s every second. It’s the fear, the waiting, the hoping, the scans, the treatments and the worry that doesn’t disappear when September ends.

And for the families who have lost a child, it’s learning how to live while a piece of your heart is physically missing from this world.

We’ve talked over the years about the “gift of cancer.” About how it teaches you to love harder, live more fully and appreciate every single second. And I believe that. Cancer changed the way I love and the way I live.

But the truth is, the world would be so much better if no family ever had to receive that “gift.” If no parent had to learn those lessons this way.

These are the faces of just a few of the children in heaven who are forever embedded in my heart over the last ten years. They have taught me to love harder, do better and give more.
May I see their faces constantly to find the wind to keep going and hit all these incredible milestones. I’d love any help if anyone wants to keep making a change with us! 💛

https://www.bravegowns.com/products/gift-a-gown

09/04/2026

Over a year ago, we announced what we believed would be Addi’s final Brave Gown Mission. I had received a bittersweet message from our sweet friend Summer, the incredible founder of Brave Gowns, letting us know that Brave Gowns was preparing to send out their final gown donations and end Brave Gowns.
When I told Addi, she was heartbroken. Brave Gowns has been such a special part of her journey and a mission she has believed in with her whole heart. But in true Addi fashion, she wanted to finish strong and help as many kids as she possibly could. But God had other plans.
By the grace of God, Brave Gowns is still here. Summer has continued fighting with everything she has to keep Brave Gowns going and to put Brave Gowns on children in hospitals for as long as she possibly can. So when Summer recently reached out and asked if Addi would want to do another mission for Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, my heart immediately said yes. But I’ll admit, I hesitated.
I have always tried to be completely honest and forthcoming with all of you, and we had told you that the last mission was our final one. Then I talked to Addi.
I thought about everything this little girl and all of YOU have accomplished through her Brave Gown Missions. I thought about the thousands of children who have received gowns because of this community. I thought about the gowns we have hand-delivered up and down the East Coast and the thousands more that have been shipped to children in hospitals across the country.
And most of all, I thought about the messages we have received from families telling us how much these gowns matter. How they ease fear. Bring comfort. Give a child something to smile about on a really hard day. And remind kids that even in a hospital, they still get to be kids. How could we not do it again?
So here we are....
Addi’s 6th Brave Gown Mission for Childhood Cancer Awareness Month!
For the past five years, you have shown up for Addi and helped her turn something so personal into something that has brought joy, comfort, hope, and bravery to thousands of other children. We are asking you to show up with us once again. One gown can change a child’s hospital day.
One share can help us reach another child.
From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for continuing to believe in Addi, in Brave Gowns, and in the power of doing something kind for someone else.
We truly could not do this without you. We are excited to donate more Brave Gowns during Childhood Cancer Awareness month to children all over the US!
https://www.bravegowns.com/products/addis-journeys-mission
Much love ~

Brave Gowns

Addi’s 6th Brave Gown Mission.🎗️ For the past five years, you have shown up for Addi and helped her turn something so personal into something that has brought joy, comfort, hope, and bravery to thousands of other children. We truly could not have done any of this without you. One gown can cha...

08/10/2026

We love our buddy, CJ and are so happy he's thriving!❤️

08/06/2026

Brave Gideon has stage four cancer. He was scheduled to go into surgery at his primary children's hospital, but his doctor had his own medical scare. His family then flew out of state to another children's hospital to meet with a specialist. It was exactly where he was meant to be. He brought four different Brave Gowns. He picked the police officer gown to feel brave. We are praying so hard for his family and Gideon as Gideon exubated himself in the night!

Brave Gowns' real impact...
They help kids feel Brave.

What the hospitals see: Better access to medical care with an improved medical gown.

What families see: Hope. A little glimpse of normalcy during a really hard moment.

What people think Brave Gowns are: A cute hospital gowns. A shirt. A fun design. Something we sew in our basements.

What they really are: A premium hospital gowns that allow kids to be kids-even in the hospital!

Childhood shouldn't stop at the hospital doors.❤️

08/05/2026

We are honored that Harper’s mom shared her story with us to help get more Brave Gowns sponsored for children on our waitlist.

This is the message we received from Harper’s mom:

“It’s adorable. Harper only got to wear her Brave Gown once before passing away after a two year battle with cancer. Thank you for all you do to make children like Harper more comfortable as they face challenges no children should face.”

Please send extra love Harper’s families way. 💛

https://www.bravegowns.com/collections/sponsor-a-brave-gown-for-a-child-on-our-waiting-list