Sunrise Spirit Award: Marie Horn
There is a quiet truth that lives inside every volunteer who steps into Southwest Kids Cancer Foundation. Most arrive carrying a story of their own. A diagnosis in the family. A chapter they survived. A moment when life cracked open and nothing felt certain again.
Marie is one of those volunteers.
Like many, she first walked through our doors holding memories that still lived close to the surface. Cancer has a way of stealing the words right out of your chest, and for a long time Marie carried more than she said out loud. But in this community, among other families, siblings, and volunteers who understood the weight of those memories, her voice returned. Her story found space. And her hope, once stretched thin, found people willing to help carry it.
Hope is the heartbeat of this place, and Marie lives at the center of it.
She sees it in the giggles drifting out of the arts and crafts room.
She hears it in the whispered confessions between siblings who have carried more than their age should ever require.
She feels it in the way volunteers silently say you are not alone simply by showing up, again and again.
Cancer teaches people strange things. Patience. Flexibility. The ability to pivot when plans fall apart in an instant. Kids learn this in ways that seem effortless. Adults learn slower, often only after life reminds them that treatment is a marathon, not a sprint, and that control is more illusion than reality. Marie understands these lessons deeply, and she brings that gentle understanding into every space she serves.
Volunteering softened Marie in unexpected ways. The more stories she heard, the more she realized how perspective itself can become medicine. There is always someone at the start of their journey. Always someone starting over again. And each time she heard those stories, she was reminded that the things we treat as mountains often shrink to pebbles when placed beside what these families face day after day.
Marie’s own perspective was shaped in August 2010 when her daughter, Megan, was diagnosed with leukemia. Their world shifted overnight into hospital rooms, IV poles, and long nights at Cardon Children’s. Two years later, the family learned Megan would need a bone marrow transplant, and the journey began again. A new hospital. A new battle. A new leap of faith.
Through it all, Megan’s big brother, Kyle, never left her side. He carried a level of love and courage far beyond his years. Whenever school allowed, he went with Megan to treatments. During the summers, he was at Phoenix Children’s almost every day. His unofficial motto became “have Xbox, will travel,” and he brought laughter into rooms built for anything but joy. His parents traded shifts like air-traffic controllers, juggling a household stretched across two places at once.
Kyle became Megan’s anchor, her companion, her bright spot. And eventually, Southwest Kids Cancer Foundation became his safe place too.
Camp gave Kyle space to breathe and be understood without explanation. It gave him friends who knew the unspoken language of fear, hope, and resilience. It gave him a chance to be a kid again.
From there, his journey blossomed. He became a Leader In Training. Then a counselor. Today he leads cabins during sibling week and helps oversee arts and crafts. He volunteers year round, showing up with the same steady heart he carried into every hospital room during Megan’s treatment.
Marie watches her son pour himself into this foundation with gratitude. SWKCF didn’t only support Megan. It didn’t only support their family. It helped give Kyle back pieces of childhood that illness had threatened to take.
And that is what makes this place more than a camp.
SWKCF is family.
A family you can count on when your world feels too heavy.
A family that understands without needing every detail.
A family built from courage, tenderness, exhaustion, and a fierce kind of love that rises in the hardest moments.
Marie comes here with gratitude, with memories, and with a heart that knows what it means to be held during life’s darkest seasons. She shows up because once upon a time, someone showed up for her family. And now she continues that legacy for others.
That is the kind of hope that grows here. The kind that stays. The kind that becomes legacy.
January – Shiloh Monka
February – Bill McKnight
March – Vincent Ortega
April – Fred Schafer & Tyler Karas
May – Lee Bartlett
June – Kegan Remington & Denise Salara
July – Perla Preciado & Bryson Wampler
August - Caitlyn Sutter
September - Kylie Begaye
October - Marie Horn
