Ava Danuser is a freshman at Highland Park High School. While she is dealing with the stress of final exams this week, it's nothing compared to the test of her health she's faced.
"I was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma, which is a type of cancer," said 15-year-old Danuser said. "So that was pretty stressful for me."
Ewing sarcoma is a rare bone cancer. Danuser had to have surgery and chemotherapy at Medical City Dallas Texas Oncology Pediatrics.
"Food turned really bad at one point," Danuser said "I couldn't eat a lot of my favorite foods because they tasted like cardboard... so it was really hard."
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Now Danuser is an ambassador for Salood, a Dallas-based nonprofit that partners with companies to design products, with profits going to help families who are fighting cancer.
"Their life really changes overnight," Salood co-founder Kenny Freeland said. "It can be stressful."
Freeland remembers the stress. As a child, he frequently developed kidney stones, rare at that young age, that put him in the hospital for 1-2 weeks at a time.
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"I can remember some of the procedures I was going to go through would be thousands of dollars," Freeland recalled. "As a kid I remember thinking, that's a lot of money, and then as an adult, I still think that's a lot of money!"
Salood is on its 12th collaboration, pairing Salood ambassador Danuser with Stoney Clover Lane to design a line of bags. Danuser put butterflies on them to symbolize hope and transformation.
"I've always wanted to help people," Danuser said. "It just makes you feel good when you know you've helped a lot of people's lives."
Salood says profits from collaborations like Danuser's have helped 200 families so far.
"We hope it actually gives them some hope and it takes away a layer of stress," Freeland said. "It can remind them that there's a lot of communities, a lot of organizations, who are there to rally behind them and to help them. They're not doing this alone."
You can see and shop the line Danuser helped design for Salood here.
