Emily Bhatnagar from Montgomery County is making an extra push this Childhood Cancer Awareness Month to give back through her non-profit, For Love and Buttercup.
She told W-A-M-U she started the non-profit when she was 17 while accompanying her father to treatments for his thyroid cancer. She saw many children younger than her undergoing cancer treatments and wanted to help.
She feels books contain a “wondrous empathy” that can comfort the kids undergoing treatments in cancer centers across the region.
“I think a book is just a book until you are a child in a hospital room,” she explained to WAMU this week. “A book can become a familiar face, a friend, something to transport you into a whole new world. That’s really where the magic of books came from for me, personally.”
For Love and Buttercup has donated 30,000 books over the last five years. Bhatnagar used to buy books by saving tips from her job at her family’s restaurant, Monsoon Kitchens. Now there’s an Amazon wishlist people can buy from and publishers will send her books to give directly to kids.
She’s also expanded her footprint. For Love and Buttercup now delivers to major cancer hospitals like Inova Cares Clinic for Families in Virginia and Children’s National Hospital in D.C., as well as at family-based support groups.
That’s help her work more directly with the children she’s serving, and better understand some of their needs.
“I think they need someone who really hears them,” she says. “I think a lot of the time, for many of these children — the ones I’ve spoken to at least — they are so used to being treated as fragile, when really they’re some of the strongest warriors I’ve met.”
This September she has the ambitious goal of delivering 5,000 books to children in area hospitals.
“What if we make it just Christmas a little bit early this year and flood hospitals with books upon books upon books. And every kid can choose something that they love as an early Christmas gift.”
The post Local non-profit donates thousands of books to childhood cancer patients appeared first on WAMU.
Published Date : 2026-08-26 15:57:00
Source : wamu.org
