{"id":164762,"date":"2025-08-21T21:14:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T21:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/164762\/"},"modified":"2025-08-21T21:14:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T21:14:15","slug":"harvest-for-hope-raises-funds-awareness-for-kids-with-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/164762\/","title":{"rendered":"Harvest for Hope raises funds, awareness for kids with cancer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A past Harvest for Hope event, benefitting children with cancer. (File photo courtesy of the Emilio Nares Foundation)<\/p>\n

The Emilio Nares Foundation is hosting its 22nd annual Harvest for Hope event in September to raise funds and awareness for children battling life-threatening conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so special because it\u2019s a nice celebration of everything that we\u2019ve not only achieved within the last year and the last 23 years, but what we can achieve in the near and the long future,\u201d said Tania Zavala, development manager of the Emilio Nares Foundation.<\/p>\n

The Emilio Nares Foundation<\/a> was founded in 2002 after Emilio Nares, 5, who was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, passed away. The Nares family felt immense support during Emilio\u2019s battle, but they realized that not every family had the same experience. Hoping to extend the support they felt, Richard and Diane, Emilio\u2019s parents, launched the foundation.<\/p>\n

The Harvest for Hope<\/a> event brings together 300 supporters, families, food and drink vendors and more for one night of celebration and awareness. The evening event, from 6 to 9 p.m. Sept. 4, raises funds for the nonprofit and spreads the word about its mission: offering support and resources for the families of children who are fighting for their lives.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The foundation offers a multitude of services, the main one being its Ride with Emilio program which provides free transportation for families as their children undergo medical treatment.<\/p>\n

For Randy Smerik, the transportation program is one of the reasons his restaurant, Solare Ristorante<\/a>, is an event vendor and partner.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of children out there that just can\u2019t get to the hospital or can\u2019t get to their medical care, because they may have a single mom or a single dad that\u2019s working. Even though everybody wants that child to get care, there just is no way of doing it,\u201d Smerik said. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of like a last-mile problem that I believe, until I heard about ENF, I think was just kind of a forgotten piece.\u201d<\/p>\n

Solare Ristorante isn\u2019t just a partner with Harvest for Hope, but a legacy partner building on 12 years of collaboration. Each year, Solare Ristorante becomes more involved than the previous year.<\/p>\n

Beyond believing in the cause, Smerik comes back each year because of the foundation\u2019s ability to innovate while remaining focused on its mission. Smerik said Solare\u2019s values also align with the foundation, making the partnership that much easier.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re both very family-run organizations. We both share a lot of the same values, of how we work with other people, how we honor our commitments and so on,\u201d Smerik said.<\/p>\n

Zavala, with the foundation, echoed the same sentiment regarding the foundation\u2019s relationship with its legacy donors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason why we can call them legacy donors and partners is because we\u2019re both driven on each one of our ends to the same mission. So we\u2019re both passionate about what our mission or organization is doing for the families and in the communities,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The Harvest for Hope event is now in the first week of September, a change from earlier years when it was later in the month. September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, so the September date is no coincidence.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNow that we changed it to the beginning of the month, it\u2019s just giving us an opportunity to kind of continue talking about it. So we still like to continue campaigning until the end of the month to ensure that we continue service to families,\u201d Zavala said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tickets are still available, and the foundation, along with its sponsors, encourages all members of the community to join in the festivities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis fundraising event is a testament to the incredible support of our community. Together, we\u2019re building a future where every family facing childhood cancer knows they\u2019re not alone \u2014 and have a village behind them,\u201d Elsa Morales-Roth, executive director of the foundation, said in a press release.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A past Harvest for Hope event, benefitting children with cancer. (File photo courtesy of the Emilio Nares Foundation)…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":164763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,48701,94951,15045,3549,7264,94952,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-164762","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-childhood-cancer","12":"tag-emilio-nares-foundation","13":"tag-fundraisers","14":"tag-san-diego","15":"tag-sandiego","16":"tag-solare","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-united-states-of-america","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115068827569174479","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}