Childhood Cancer Awareness specialty license Plate in Virginia?- michael towner

If all goes according to plan, hundreds of cars on Virginia’s roadways will soon display a special license plate with a small gold ribbon and a far bigger goal: to make passing motorists think about the wide-reaching impact of childhood cancer.

During the General Assembly session this month, Del. Thomas A. “Tag” Greason (R-Loudoun) will present a bill that would make specialty license plates, featuring the gold ribbon of childhood cancer awareness, available to all Virginia drivers. The bill marks the culmination of a project started by the family of Mathias Giordano, a cheerful and athletic Leesburg youth who was diagnosed with a form of bone cancer as a fifth-grader in 2012.

Soon after his diagnosis, Mathias had part of his leg amputated and began a grueling cycle of more than 20 chemotherapy courses. In the midst of Mathias’s treatment, the family bought a new car to take him to his many appointments and out-of-state surgeries. When his mother, Roya Giordano, went to the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles to get a new license plate for the car, she learned that there was no special plate to signify childhood cancer awareness.“I requested the gold childhood cancer ribbon, and the gentleman behind the counter said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ ” Giordano said. “He said they had the yellow one for the troops, and the pink one for breast cancer. But no ribbon for childhood cancer. I thought, that can’t be right.”Mathias echoed that reaction when Giordano told him the news, she said.

“He said, ‘That can’t be right. Everyone knows what the pink ribbon stands for. We have to get the gold out there, Mom.’ ” She promised him they would.

Mathias died at home in December at age 13. Reeling from his loss, his family is even more determined to pursue an end to the illness that took his life. Compared with finding a cure, a license plate is a small step, Giordano said, but making people aware of the illness is critical.

“I knew about childhood cancer, but I didn’t really do anything about it before Mathias was diagnosed,” Giordano said. “It’s such a difficult and painful problem to contemplate.”