Rose Parade 2024
2024 marks the 50th anniversary of City of Hope’s participation in the Rose Parade. This year’s float, titled “A Lovely Day for Hope,” will celebrate eight cancer survivors from City of Hope®, one of the largest cancer research and treatment organizations in the United States, and its locations in Los Angeles, Orange County, Chicago, Atlanta and Phoenix.
The nearly 50-foot long and 20 foot tall float built by Phoenix Decorating Company will feature a floral-covered carousel that represents the cyclical nature of life and a forward momentum signifying City of Hope’s evolution and growth as it expands its supportive cancer care, innovative treatments and leading-edge clinical trials to more patients, families and communities across the nation. The carousel’s up-and-down cyclical movement represents a life’s journey, which has sorrow and joy and brings people together. Butterflies and white doves symbolize new beginnings as both are present during life’s milestone moments.
Patient Stories
Chicago salsa singer Hector Nuñez feared he would never perform again after being diagnosed with tongue cancer. Due to the cancer’s aggressiveness, Nuñez was told that treatment would likely result in the loss of his tongue with no hope of rehabilitation. Nuñez beat the odds thanks to a second opinion he received at City of Hope Cancer Center Chicago.
Minutes after giving birth to her daughter in 2018, Christine Chen’s doctors noticed a large mass the size of a watermelon in her abdomen that had been concealed by her pregnancy. “Twelve hours after my daughter was born, I was being seen by an oncologist. It was pretty wild,” said Chen, who came to City of Hope Los Angeles for a blood stem cell transplant to treat her cancer.
Thanks to City of Hope’s leading-edge bone marrow transplant program, Edmonds is one of five people in the world to achieve remission of HIV after receiving stem cells from a donor with a rare genetic mutation. After losing friends and loved ones to the international AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, more than three decades later, Edmonds is grateful to be alive and healthy.
Ray went into remission from breast cancer in 2018 but the cancer returned in her throat’s lymph nodes. Doctors advised her to go home, speak with her family and get her affairs in order because she only had two years to live due to the recurrence. Ray, a mother of two young boys, was determined to fight her second battle with cancer and that’s when she found City of Hope Cancer Center Atlanta.
Azu, a music industry executive, was diagnosed with an aggressive form of metastatic prostate cancer. Azu was referred to City of Hope Los Angeles. Due to the lack of screening and preventative measures in communities of color, Azu pledged to bring awareness to the work being done by City of Hope in the Division of Health Equities.
One year after losing her best friend and younger sister to triple-negative breast cancer, Brown had to deal with her own breast cancer diagnosis at a young age as well. Brown was forced to deal with a series of decisions about traveling for care, surgical treatment options, insurance and housing. She ultimately made the life-changing decision to move beyond her life in Dallas to seek care at City of Hope Cancer Center Phoenix.
After initially beating breast cancer in 2002, Willahan never expected to deal with a second cancer diagnosis over a decade later. In 2017, Willahan was diagnosed with stage four mantle cell lymphoma, a rare form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. She was a candidate for chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy.
For more on Kathy's success story and the 2024 Rose Parade, read this blog.
Ian MacLeod will walk alongside the City of Hope float with his doctor Amrita Krishnan, M.D., professor in the Division of Multiple Myeloma at City of Hope. MacLeod had acute myeloid leukemia and received a stem cell transplant from his brother. He is now a certified meditation instructor who helps cancer patients cope with anxiety and fear.