Olivia Chan Foundation

Olivia was joy in human form.  She loved life and all her people. She worried about friends with hurt feelings and she wrote notes to brighten everyone’s day. She was fun-loving, spunky and laughed easily. She loved rainbows, unicorns, mermaids and dresses as much as wrestling with her brother and playing tackle football with her dad.

On January 17, 2022, we heard the phrase every parent fears, “your daughter has Leukemia”. Her case was extremely rare – “Your daughter is the 1%”, the doctors said. Three days after Olivia’s diagnosis, cancer took her away. It was swift and brutal. 

Our world shattered. We couldn’t comprehend the void that Olivia left behind. It felt impossible to move forward, impossible to breathe without her. The pain was all-consuming, a weight we carried through each passing day.

And then, in the midst of that overwhelming grief, we began to find the remnants of the love she had left behind. It started with a note we found tucked away in her room, a simple and loving message she had written to cheer us up on some forgotten day. Then, there were old text messages—Olivia’s words of encouragement and humor, always filled with positivity. We discovered videos she had made, each one revealing her playful spirit and her gift for making us laugh. It was as if she had left breadcrumbs for us to follow, guiding us out of the darkness, reminding us of who she was and what she stood for.

Olivia’s impact on the world didn’t end with her passing. We couldn’t allow her light to simply disappear. It was too strong, too bright, too full of life to be snuffed out by something as cruel as cancer. We knew we had to do something to honor her memory, something that would keep her spirit alive in the world. And so, we created the Olivia Chan Foundation.

The Olivia Chan Foundation was born from our need to make sense of a world that had stopped making sense. Finding adequate grief support that met the needs of our family was a challenge, to say the least. We encountered lengthy wait lists, seasonal programs, and a scarcity of grief resources within our community. Through the foundation, we aim to help others who are in their darkest moments. We want to lift people up when they feel as though there is no light left. We want to offer support to families who are grieving, to show them that while the pain never fully disappears, there is a way to move forward with love and hope.

We created the foundation to honor Olivia, but in many ways, it also saved us. It gave us a purpose when we felt purposeless. It gave us a way to channel our grief into something positive, something that could help others who are suffering. Through the foundation, we have met countless families who, like us, have faced unimaginable loss. And while the pain never goes away, there is solace in knowing that we are not alone, that we can help one another, and that through our efforts, Olivia’s light continues to shine.