The Ontario branch of the society has recently promised $250,000 a year for five years to the Picton-area Camp Trillium for kids with cancer, as well as $50,000 to assist a new professional group dedicated to treatment of childhood cancer victims.

Kaye Kimpton is executive director of Children's Oncology Care of Ontario, which runs the Toronto house, opened in 1981.

Camp Trillium, for kids outside of Metro, was the first cancer camp in Canada when it opened in 1984. It is free, says director Pauline McKenna, and more than 450 children camped there last year. Three nurses are hired for the summer, as well as 25 counsellors. This past summer, four counsellors were cancer survivors. McKenna says camp is an important link to the carefree world of childhood for children who have to be so grown up when it comes to withstanding pain and taking their medicine. One little girl fulfilled her last wish to go to camp this past summer before dying three days later.