I Am…Building a Courageous Community
When a child becomes sick or suddenly starts looking or acting differently due to illness, something shifts inside a parent. The world narrows to asking yourself: How do I protect my child from this? How do I help them feel whole? How do we get through it?
For fathers Jeff Woytovich and Oded Grinstein, that search for answers did not end when their children’s diagnoses stabilized. Instead it grew into building communities with fierce, determined love as their foundation.
Jeff’s Story: Raising a Child Whose Image Suddenly Changes
When Jeff’s daughter lost her hair to alopecia universalis, the physical change was immediate. The emotional impact was quieter, deeper, harder to name. Children with alopecia often describe feeling stared at, excluded, unsure how to explain their diagnosis and that it's not contagious. Parents worry about bullying, self-confidence, identity, school photos, playdates, and the long-term emotional toll.
Jeff Woytovich, Founder of Children’s Alopecia Project, with his daughter.
Jeff, a Marine Corps veteran and former senior healthcare administrator, knew his daughter needed more than medical explanations. She needed peers, confidence, and a space where she didn’t feel different.
So he built it.
The Children's Alopecia Project (CAP) became the first nonprofit to focus on providing emotional support to children with alopecia. Camps, support circles, sibling programs, kid-led leadership activities—every part of CAP is designed to give children tools to navigate a world that can be unkind about visible differences. Today, CAP’s activities directly strengthens the emotional and mental well-being of thousands of kids and their families.
Oded’s Story: Turning Survival into a Lifeline for Others
Oded Grinstein, Founder of MyChild’sCancer, with his daugher.
For Oded, his child's cancer pushed him into a second full-time role: advocate, researcher, navigator, medical translator, and emotional anchor for his young daughter. Families facing pediatric cancer often describe the same mental toll: sleepless nights, constant second-guessing, medical jargon, treatment decisions that feel impossible, and waves of fear that arrive without warning.
Oded’s family survived their daughter’s cancer, but he couldn’t walk away from the families still stuck in those uncertain and terrifying days. He founded MyChild'sCancer, a nonprofit built to ensure that no parent ever faces those decisions alone. MyChild’sCancer helps families find expert opinions worldwide, understand complex diagnoses, and access treatment paths they didn’t know existed.
“Parents facing childhood cancer are forced to make life-altering decisions under immense emotional pressure. Access to trusted information and a network of people who understand can be a true game changer — turning fear into informed action.”
When Parents Create the World Their Child Needed
Both Jeff and Oded built organizations grounded in one truth: Children and parents carry profound emotional burdens during illness, and they heal better with community.
CAP lifts children out of isolation and strengthens mental health through friendship, confidence-building, and joyful visibility.
MyChild’sCancer guides families through medical uncertainty and provides clarity and advocacy every parent deserves.
Inside and outside of Smart Patients, these communities are networks of support for families who need specific information and emotional safety. Smart Patients helps connect them with others who’ve walked the same road.
A December Reflection: The Gifts Born from the Hardest Moments
This holiday season, while families celebrate traditions with their children and share gifts, Jeff and Oded display the very best of what it means to show up for others:
Their children's problems sparked legacies - communities where parents can finally exhale, ask questions they're afraid to ask anywhere else, and talk with others who understand "what if." These gifts of connection, clarity, and courage are handed down lovingly from family to family.
Sometimes the best gifts aren’t wrapped. Instead, they’re built to be shared with everyone who needs them. Join us to share this free gift of community.