All proceeds are tax deductible and 100% of your donations go directly to the There Goes My Hero Foundation and the Carson Scholars Fund.

There Goes My Hero was created by Erik Sauer. Erik is an Acute Myelogenous Leukemia survivor and the recipient of a bone marrow transplant from an unrelated donor. His cancer treatment was done at the Kimmel Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

In addition, Erik and his family of four utilized a host of family support programs offered free at Upper Chesapeake Health: Cancer LifeNet in Bel Air, MD.

When Erik began to regain his strength post transplant, he began to visit with other transplant patients similar in circumstance to himself. Here he made many new friends and felt he had become a good resource for them personally and as a guide through the tough transplant process. In addition, Erik began to speak with Dr. Jonathan Gerber less about his health issues and more about the blood cancer research he was doing at Johns Hopkins. Erik was fascinated. These experiences, coupled with Erik and his family’s use of the family support services of Cancer LifeNet, prompted him to think about starting his own foundation.

Erik decided he want to help fight cancers and blood cancers. Believing that research targeting cancers at the stem cell level was the way to go. Having experienced the “cancer fight” with his wife and son, family support programs were very important as well. Erik’s life was saved because of an anonymous marrow donor. Getting more people registered will help people in situations similar to Erik’s. There are not enough people registered in the United States.

Erik designed the There Goes My Hero foundation to fund blood cancer research, family support programs and to help teach people about the importance of the bone marrow registry.

There Goes My Hero is officially recognized as a tax exempt non-profit entity under section 501(C)(3) of the IRS Code

The Carson Scholars Fund was founded in 1994 by world-renowned Johns Hopkins pediatric neurosurgeon Dr. Benjamin S. Carson and his wife, Candy. The vision for the Carson Scholars Fund came from the Carsons' observation that many school display cases were filled with large trophies paying tribute to their sports teams' achievements, while honor students traditionally received a pin or certificate.

Then, after reading a research study stating that students in the United States ranked 21 out of 22 countries – next to the bottom of the list – in science and math, the Carsons felt alarmed and compelled to take action.

The crisis needed to be addressed. The concept was simple, yet unique. Students in grades 4-11 who had at least a 3.75 grade point average and demonstrated strong humanitarian qualities would be recommended by school officials to apply for $1,000 scholarships. If a student won a scholarship, it would be invested for his or her college education until graduation from high school and they would be designated as a Carson Scholar. Winners could reapply annually as long as they maintained their GPA. The awards would be paid directly to the four-year accredited institution of higher learning, on their behalf.

As the organization grew, the Carsons established a second program in 2000, the Ben Carson Reading Project. In his autobiography, Gifted Hands, Dr. Carson wrote about how his life was changed once he embraced reading. Recognizing the need to create warm and inviting places to learn the joys of independent reading, the Ben Carson Reading Project established reading rooms within schools. The reading rooms provide a friendly atmosphere where students, educators, and community members can come together and embrace reading activities. Each room is colorfully decorated and promotes Dr. Carson’s “THINK BIG” philosophy. Students within reading room schools can earn rewards for their improvement in reading level, the number of books read, or the number of minutes spent reading.