Honoring Little p: Parker Mansson

I chose to honor Parker Mansson with a glass flower in the Seasons of Life art installation.

I met Parker Mansson when she was in elementary school.  Her father and my husband worked together and when we were looking into where we wanted our kids to go to school, we thought about who has the kindest kids we know who care about the world and their community and we immediately thought of Parker’s family.  Parker is the reason we are now at our school which teaches my kids that they are part of a community and their learning is based in service and respect for others.  Parker inspired my kids to be better humans and hopefully my children spread their sunshine and love to all they know just like Parker did.  She has forever impacted our family’s life for the better just by following in her and her family’s footsteps.

Before she was eleven years old, Parker also changed the lives of every animal she ever came across – which I can imagine was in the thousands.  Whether it was through her unofficial charity “Parker’s Planet” that sells jewelry and donates the proceeds to help animals and other causes close to Parker’s heart or just loving on all the animals that crossed her path, Parker knew at a very young age that each one of us can make a difference but when we work together we can make change.

Once Parker moved across the country with her family and was diagnosed with pediatric soft tissue sarcoma when she was just 9 years old, Parker’s people came out of the woodwork to fight with her against the disease and to surround her with love and hope in her mighty fight against this childhood cancer. Parker showed unfathomable courage and resilience over years of treatment, surgeries, radiation, chemotherapy and hospital stays. Parker and her family’s struggle and their grace while engaging in the fight of Parker’s life is always on the forefront of my mind and inspires me in my daily life as I know that it inspires all who were lucky enough to know Parker.

In the Spring of 2022 when Parker lost her fight with sarcoma, she inspired me, as a former nonprofit attorney, to reach out to her parents and ask if they wanted to turn Parker’s Planet into an official nonprofit to help raise money for pediatric sarcoma research. Their response, which is exactly what I would imagine what Parker would say, was to keep Parker’s Planet as a charity to help animals, the environment and all of the things that Parker loved in the world and they instead decided to create a new charity named the Little p Project, as she was affectionately known, to change how pediatric sarcomas are treated.

After helping her parents forming the Little p Project, I decided to come out of retirement with my own law firm to help nonprofits get their tax exemption for a plethora of charitable causes for a discounted rate.  I credit Parker and the Little p Project for helping all of the wonderful clients I’ve had the pleasure of meeting spread hope around our world by bringing their charitable passions to life.  Every time I meet a new client, I think, I wonder if Parker knows how her spark inspired me to help this client change the world, one charity at a time and then I realize, of course she does because she knew that before we all did.

Melissa Kreager

Parker Mansson is forever honored and remembered by Flower #158 in the Seasons of Life art installation.

Please gift a flower of your choice in honor of your loved one who has faced a cancer diagnosis, and help us fund sarcoma research and awareness in the hopes of saving more lives.