St. Louis-Based Sparkle of Love Offers Hope to Parents of Kids with Pediatric Cancer
By: Emily Adams for St. Louis Magazine
Two weeks after being diagnosed with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG), an aggressive type of brain tumor that primarily affects children, Nora Bunn asked to speak to her kindergarten class. She wanted to tell her friends her own story—to control her own narrative—and so she did. It wouldn’t be the last time Nora processed her own experience through her vibrant storytelling mind. The book she authored and illustrated amid her cancer journey, Sparkle of Love, would go on to become the launching point for the locally based foundation created in and for her memory.
Founded by Nora’s parents, Jani Torrence and Brent Bunn, Nora’s Sparkle of Love Project raises funds to support families fighting pediatric cancer and to benefit pediatric brain tumor research. The foundation’s goal, through pillars of education, advocacy, and awareness, is to make sure no other family has to walk the path of DIPG alone—and, eventually, to bring a clinical trial facility to St. Louis, so patients in the Midwest need not travel so far for care.