Sarah Boesing ministers to children with cancer

Another article on one of our babysitters, Sarah Boesing-- for her work with children with cancer-- this one in the C-J...

Volunteers generally aren't compensated for their efforts, but Sarah Boesing has received $3,000 for her work with Break the Grey, a support group for families dealing with childhood cancer.

The 18-year-old New Albany resident is the recipient of this year's Metro United Way's Youth Scholarship Award.

Break the Grey, a ministry founded by Boesing in 2006, provides gifts, refreshments, parties and supplies to families at Kosair Children's Hospital in Louisville and Riley Children's Hospital in Indianapolis.

"I called it Break the Grey because we hold our events in the winter months, when it's really grey and gloomy," Boesing said.

"It's pretty much just a party, because parties are fun," she added. "We take toys and wrapped gifts so they actually get to open them. And we always take something for the siblings, too.

Boesing knows firsthand about children being confined to a hospital. She was diagnosed with a terminal kidney disease while her mother, Terry, was carrying her.

The doctors "told my mom several times that I would never be born," Boesing said.

Then "at age 11 the doctors gave me six months to live without dialysis or a kidney transplant," Boesing said.

In August 2001, she received a transplant at Kosair.

"The kidney unit and the cancer unit are on the same floor, so I hung out with those kids a lot" when she was in the hospital, Boesing said.

Her ideas for Break the Grey took shape during the summer of 2005, before her sophomore year at Christian Academy of Indiana in New Albany. She approached her schoolmates for help, and the first "Break the Grey" party was in January 2006.

Items for the parties are collected by the student council at the school, where Boesing graduated this year.

"Ultimately, I hope to make it an independent nonprofit organization and move beyond just parties," she said.

Boesing has also donated time to Wayside Christian Mission in Louisville, the Cancer Care Center at Floyd Memorial Hospital and Dwelling Place, a soup kitchen in New Albany.

The Metro United Way has offered the Youth Scholarship Award for 21 years; 65 teens applied this year from through the area served by Metro United Way, which covers Floyd, Clark and Harrison counties in Southern Indiana, and Jefferson, Bullitt, Oldham and Shelby counties in Kentucky.

The high school seniors are judged on academics and their volunteer work. Only one is chosen to receive the scholarship.

Boesing will start classes at Anderson (Ind.) University this fall, where she plans to study nursing.

"After spending a good amount of time with these children, I have decided to become a pediatric oncology nurse."