Too many times in recent weeks, these pages have included stories about Covington County residents diagnosed with childhood cancers.

Every day, 46 kids are diagnosed with cancer, and every day, seven die. Cancer is the No. 1 cause of death by disease in children 14 and under. But, despite those staggering facts, pediatric cancer research gets less than 4 percent of the national funding for cancer research.

AHS senior Megan Kelley is undergoing treatment for a rare form of cancer called Ewing’s Sarcoma. Twenty-two year old Bailey Byrd suffers from an extremely rare juvenile granulosa cancer. And just this week, we brought you the story of Pleasant Home’s Kennedy Kleghorn, who recently was diagnosed with masses on her thyroid and in her abdomen.

It is stories like theirs – and those of her son, Cooper – that led Christy Turner Sasser to organize a fundraiser for childhood cancer during September, designated as childhood cancer awareness month.

Sasser’s organization, Cooper’s Crew, is selling yellow shoe laces for $1, and is asking everyone to wear yellow shoe laces in their shoes or yellow ribbons in their hair every day the month if September.

The group is also selling yard signs for $10, with all the proceeds benefiting the Leukemia Lymphoma Society for pediatric cancer research. To purchase shoestrings or a yard sign, visit Andalusia Cash and Carry or call Sasser at 334.892.4511.