Widener for the sixth straight year will host “Strike Out Cancer Night” with this year's proceeds benefitting Jackson Mitchum and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP).
The event will take place as part of the softball team's doubleheader Wednesday, April 17 against Immaculata at 5:00 pm. Donations will be collected that night with all proceeds going to the foundation.
Mitchum suffers from malignant hypothalamic pilomyxoid astrocytoma, a rare pediatric brain cancer. The softball team adopted Mitchum and he started chemotherapy after the New Year, but the tumor was not responding to the treatments. He will be undergoing another brain surgery to try to remove the threat that is intertwined in his optic nerves, hypothalamus and pituitary glands, and embedded in his brain.
Since starting in 1855 as the nation's first hospital devoted exclusively to caring for children, CHOP has been the birthplace for many dramatic firsts in pediatric medicine. The hospital has fostered medical discoveries and innovations that have improved pediatric healthcare and saved countless lives.
Several items will be raffled off during the contests. Widener will be wearing special jerseys during the doubleheader.
