York County mom keeps son’s memory alive
Wes Strong Foundation helping kids with cancer
Wes Pak wanted to go to college. He wanted to become a marine biologist. He wanted to save the world.
He was 12 when he died in November, about seven years after being diagnosed with neuroblastoma.
“He had a future planned already, and that was saving our future — saving the wildlife and helping kids with cancer,” his mother Krista Pak said.
She founded the Wes Strong Foundation, previously known as United In Grace, to fulfill Wes’s dreams.
She also had a Facebook page documenting his battle with cancer and her family’s life after his death. It’s amassed more than 33,000 followers from around the globe.
She shared the good days and the bad and said followers considered Wes a part of their family even though they’d never met him. In October, Wes made his final wish — he wanted everyone to work together to clean up the oceans and waterways.
A team in Michigan cleaned the Clinton River Watershed. An aquarium in Ireland issued a challenge asking people to spend 45 minutes picking up trash on Salthill Beach in Galway.
The Ocean First Institute, a nonprofit group, tweeted that they had teams cleaning plastic and cigarette butts from beaches in California and creeks in Colorado. All said they were inspired by Wes.
But the actual foundation is run by five volunteers based in Hampton Roads, and they’ve led several beach cleanups in the area, including at Yorktown Beach, which was one of Wes’s favorite places.
“Right now, we’re focusing on right here in our backyard, but once we’ve got that down, we’ll see where we go,” Pak said.
“We may be small, but one of our main mottos is that we make waves, not ripples,” Pak said. “You
“I am beyond determined to make sure Wes’s legacy lives on. I owe him that. He didn’t have a chance to make a difference like he really wanted to so it’s up to me to make sure that still happens.”
— Krista Pak
might be one person but you can make a huge impact on someone and not even know it.”
The other part of the foundation’s efforts is devoted to helping kids with cancer and their families. Pak said Wes often wanted to give his toys to friends he made in the hospital so she started a Christmas toy drive.
This year will the ninth for the toy drive — families affected by childhood cancer fill a trash bag with toys and provides gift cards and gifts for parents.
Elizabeth Carey of Chesapeake said it was one of the ways her family could afford a Christmas celebration because her 13-yearold son David Carey has leukemia and relapsed for the first time last year.
This spring, Carey said she reached out to Pak for advice about acquiring a gaming computer for her son.
“She (Pak) called and asked what we had in mind and basically said, ‘Don’t worry about it. We’re going to try to make this happen for David,’” Carey said.
In a matter of days, the Wes Strong Foundation granted David’s wish — the first wish for Wes’s Wish Granting Program.
Carey said the computer has been one of the biggest reliefs her family has had during the past three years.
“I think because Krista comes at it from having been a cancer mom herself she knows that it’s not easy to ask for help, so if you’re asking for it, you’re already stripped down to the barest pride to get help for your kid,” Carey said. “Right now, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to make this whole situation easier for him.”
The wish-granting program is focused on kids who have relapsed because Pak found it was much harder to get a second wish.
Pak says she’s directed her grief into the foundation and considers it her way of keeping Wes alive.
“People assume it’s (childhood cancer) just a bunch of happy bald children and they go through treatment and then it’s done,” Pak said.
But cancer is the leading cause of death for children around the world, according to the World Health Organization.
And the American Cancer Society says it’s the second leading cause of death for children in the United States.
“Losing your child is something no one should have to go through ever. The pain is like nothing I’ve ever felt before and from what I’ve heard, it doesn’t get better, it just gets different,” Pak said.
She’s looking for volunteers to join the foundation and to help families with household chores or meal preparation.
“I am beyond determined to make sure Wes’s legacy lives on. I owe him that.” Pak said. “He didn’t have a chance to make a difference like he really wanted to so it’s up to me to make sure that still happens.”