More often than not, when a new family joins us for a Climb for Courage (CFC) program, they’re stepping foot into a rock gym to try climbing for the very first time. In the case of the Vincent family, they were a family of avid climbers prior to Gracie being diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) in December of 2022 at the age of 11.
I first heard from the Vincent family in April 2024 when I received their program application for our May CFC program in San Diego. Dad Jeremy and mom Shelley were interested in signing up their three kids: Gracie (then 12), Landon (then 14), and Aubrey (then 9). In their application, Jeremy shared, “Our family used to belong to a rock climbing gym and stopped our membership when Gracie was diagnosed. My wife and I are both teachers and have dedicated our lives to helping children. Gracie’s cancer diagnosis really rocked our family. We had no idea what this battle would look like. Our faith and her tenacious spirit and perseverance have made such a difference. Gracie continues to fight with such an amazing attitude. She has grit and we are incredibly proud of her. Thank you for including siblings. Many people don’t realize how much cancer impacts their lives and they often get overlooked.”
The Vincents were a clear fit for our program, and what followed was an exciting and restorative CFC experience, along with ongoing mentor-mentee relationships that our team at One Summit strives to cultivate. The Vincents had their return to the rock wall. The whole family remains a big part of our One Summit community to this day. Shelley and Jeremy generously offer their time and skills as volunteer belayers for our Climb Higher alum programs and seek to connect us with amazing people in their community who support our mission. Landon has since volunteered at several Climb for Courage programs, helping to create a fun and supportive environment for the next generation of One Summit patients and siblings going through experiences similar to his. He, too, volunteers to belay at Climb Higher to ensure we always have extra hands to get Little Warriors climbing again. And you can always find Gracie and Aubrey scaling the walls themselves (Aubrey usually ends up upside down), staying connected to mentors and other kids.
Fast forward to May 2026 as we were gearing up for our spring CFC program in San Diego. The evening before our Climb for Courage programs, we host a Mentor Welcome & Training Dinner to reconnect returning mentors with our mission and provide brand new mentors with helpful information, context about our program design, and share the impact their dedication to our organization will have on the families they will meet the next day. As part of that experience, we typically ask parents or caregivers to join us to share a few words about their experience with our organization and programs. In May, when I asked Jeremy if he and Shelley would join us for dinner and share their story, he replied, “What do you think about having Gracie and Landon there and having them both speak?”
I thought it was a wonderful idea and felt that as long as Gracie (now 14) and Landon (now 16) were comfortable with it and willing to share their personal stories, I was all for it. After all, storytelling is an important tool at One Summit because it helps children and young adults understand that they are not alone in their journey with cancer or in the experience of facing difficult challenges and unimaginable hardships. Storytelling is also a critical component of posttraumatic growth (PTG), the theory on which One Summit’s programs are built. For a person to benefit from PTG, sharing and acknowledging their story of trauma is critical.
Gracie and Landon understood the assignment and completely knocked it out of the park, sharing their experiences and feelings with grace, poise, and maturity beyond their years—not surprising, given who I know these incredible young people to be. It was beyond clear that the mentors and all in attendance could feel the power of their words. With their blessing, we are sharing their speeches below. They speak for themselves.
Hi everyone. My name is Gracie and I am 14 years old. I don’t usually talk about this stuff — like, ever — so please bear with me.
Before I got sick I was just a normal kid. I played competitive soccer. I rock climbed with my family. I had energy and I didn’t think twice about it. I didn’t know what a port was or what a platelet count meant or what it felt like to be too tired to walk across a room.
Three and a half years ago that all changed. The night after my 11th birthday I could barely keep my eyes open. I remember falling asleep extremely early that night and not really understanding why I felt so tired. The next night we found out it was cancer. My parents woke me up in the middle of the night, eyes red, trying to hide the waver in their voices. But I could hear the panic. They packed a bag with shaky hands, and we drove in the dark to the hospital where we would not be returning home for weeks. I hadn’t even processed the fact that I wouldn’t get to go to school the next morning.
What followed was three years of chemotherapy. I won’t sugarcoat it because… I think you should know what these kids are actually going through. I lost my hair. There were days I physically couldn’t eat anything but had to try anyway, only to throw it all up an hour later. There were days my body was so weak my parents had to carry me. My skin turned swollen and red where I had IVs stuck in my hands.
After the days of hospitalization, it didn’t get much better. Every week I had to go into Clinic, where I lay on a narrow bed in a “room” with curtained off walls and little kids going through hell all around me. I didn’t know whether I would be there for an hour or 10. The only estimate I had was how quickly my IV bag was slowly pumping chemo into my port.
When my family signed up for One Summit I honestly didn’t know what to expect. Rock climbing used to be something fun we did together before everything happened. The last time we had gone, I hadn’t even climbed. It was too tiring. Coming back had made me nervous I wouldn’t be able to climb like I used to.
But something happened that day at the climb. I was nervous, looking around at these Navy Seals. I hadn’t really even understood what a navy seal was. And then I met my mentor. We shared our names, pictures of our pets, favorite ice cream flavors. He didn’t treat me like a patient, like the dozens of doctors and nurses and specialists did. He treated me like a friend. Like someone who understood what it meant to persevere through hard things. And of course, we climbed walls.
When I pushed myself up to the top holds, I didn’t feel like that shaky, fragile, helpless kid I had believed myself to be for the past year. I had been told over and over to take it easy and don’t push myself. Staring up at that wall and my mentor watching below, I felt a fierce determination to prove everyone who underestimated me wrong. And so I climbed wall after wall after wall. And nobody stopped me. My mentor just grinned and pointed to another course. By the end of the day, my hands were chalky, bloody, and blistered. I had never felt better.
My mentor met me where I was at. Reflecting on the past 2 years, I realize how much we’ve done. A week after the first climb, we met up at my neighborhood dog park to introduce our dogs to each other. His dog immediately ran away, and we searched for 20 minutes. . . Still a good time though! A few weeks later we ended summer with a beach bonfire. One day he and his wife bailed me out of homeschool to tour the cannibal exhibit at Balboa Park. Our connection continued to grow and I was proud to have a mentor. My mentor was my special guest when I got to swim with dolphins at Sea World. He had no hesitation riding on 15+ roller coasters the rest of the afternoon. The best was when he showed up to our annual family gingerbread house competition wearing a Christmas onesie. He showed up again the next year! One of the most important times my mentor showed up was when I had my Ringing the Bell party. He was there cheering me on and celebrating my end of chemo.
I’m not the same girl I was before the diagnosis. I don’t think I ever will be. But I’m starting to think there is a valuable strength in accepting that. My experiences have made me stronger. I have faced very difficult things. Honestly? I still am. But I know now that there are always going to be people who are supporting me, because they see a struggle that they can relate and sympathize to. Because they want to do something above themselves, to make a connection on a deeper, more meaningful level.
I know things now that most kids my age won’t learn for many more years. I know what it means to be uncomfortable and keep going anyway. I know that your body can go through things that seem impossible and still come back. I know that the people who show up for you in the hard moments — even in small ways — are the ones you remember forever.
I’m still figuring out who I am on the other side of all of this. Reconnecting with kids I hadn’t seen in three years was harder than I expected, not because of them, but because somewhere along the way my perspective had shifted in ways I still don’t fully understand yet.
What I want you to remember is that your presence in a kid’s life doesn’t have to look any certain way. It just has to be real. A postcard from a place you’ve been. A challenge coin. An outing for ice cream. A text that just says I’m thinking about you. Every family is different, every kid is different — but the need to feel seen and remembered is something we all share. Tomorrow, at Climb for Courage you’re going to meet your kid for the first time. They might be nervous. They might be quiet. They might not know what to say — because honestly, neither will you, and that’s okay. What matters is that you showed up. And somewhere in that climb, in that conversation, in that moment where they look over and see you there — something is going to shift for them. You’re going to plant something in that kid that grows long after the ropes are put away.
Hey, y'all, I’m Landon Vincent and I'm the proud brother of Gracie Vincent. I’m currently 16 years old and a sophomore in high school. It's a huge honor for me to be up here today and I hope that I can help you all understand just how big of an impact you can have on your mentees.
My story isn’t about fighting cancer. It’s about watching someone I love fight it and facing the challenges that come at home. Before Gracie got sick, my dad and I were inseparable. Baseball, fishing, hiking — he coached my Little League team and we spent a lot of time just being out in the world together. Life was full and loud and normal. And then everything came crashing down.
When Gracie was diagnosed, our family changed overnight. My dad took on most of the hospital stays — sometimes gone for weeks at a time. When he came home, my mom would go. They traded off constantly so one of them was always at Gracie’s side. Between the two of them, they held our family together through something that would have broken most people. But the reality at home was that it often felt like a one-parent household — and whoever was there was exhausted and stretched thin. The house also went quiet in a way that felt a lot like COVID. Nobody could come over. We couldn’t go out. Gracie had no immune system and we had to protect her from everything. For two solid years, we lived in isolation.
I was 13. Trying to figure out who I was in middle school. And the support system I had always counted on just disappeared — not because anyone stopped loving me, but because there wasn’t enough of my parents to go around. I struggled in school in ways I never had before. And because I was the capable one, the responsible one, I think it was easy for everyone to assume I was fine. So I became fine on the outside. I learned to cook for myself. I figured things out independently. I didn’t want to add to what my parents were already carrying.
But inside, I was a 13-year-old kid who missed his dad. Who missed normal. Who didn’t know where he fit in any of it. So I did what a lot of guys my age would do — I tried to stay busy and keep myself out of the house as much as I could. I wasn’t dealing with what was happening — I was avoiding it. I was tired and stretched thin, and I needed something to change.
And that's where Climb for Courage and my mentors came in. I remember I had just returned to school from a break at home to watch my younger sister when my dad texted me, asking if I'd like to go rock climbing with Navy SEALs. I agreed right away because I had missed rock climbing a lot, since it was something we used to do regularly before the diagnosis.
Now, when we showed up at the event, I had no idea what to expect with the program, other than it was a rare opportunity to get out of the house and be around others. But as soon as we met the mentors, it hit me. This wasn't just about a rock wall. It was my chance to connect with someone who actually understood what I was going through.
My first mentor came into my life like an older brother. We went surfing, shooting at the range, he took me on base, and told me stories about training. He didn’t talk down to me — he treated me like someone worth investing in. That means everything to a teenage dude trying to find his footing. My current mentor is equally impactful. He asks me questions that make me think about who I want to be and what I want my future to look like. He’s taken hours out of his time to sit down and just talk with me about life and has provided me with lessons I carry with me today.
Both of them showed me that the choices you make right now at 16 actually matter. That your future is being shaped today, whether you realize it or not. Having my mentors in my corner has helped me make better choices — about who I spend time with, about what I’m willing to put my name on, and the kind of person I want to become. When you have someone you genuinely look up to, it changes how you think and make your decisions.
But the biggest change has been how I see my family. When Gracie was sick, I found it hard to accept — it was hard to face it head-on. Now I look back with deep respect for what my sister endured, what my parents sacrificed, and how our family stayed together through all of it without falling apart. Now I volunteer at One Summit because I want to give back what was given to me and see kids given the chance to smile again.
If you’re here as a mentor, I want you to know — the siblings in this program may look fine, but cancer doesn’t just happen to one kid in a family. It happens to all of them, in quieter ways that are easy to miss. I would encourage all of you to seek these kids out and establish a connection with them. Because sometimes all it takes is one friendship to help shape someone's future. That’s what my mentors have helped do for me. Tomorrow, you're not just going rock climbing. You're changing a life. You changed mine. Thank you.
We are honored to be a small part of the story of the incredibly strong, resilient, and courageous Vincent family. We are grateful for their support, time, and generosity as they continue to give back to our organization in numerous ways, years after their initial Climb for Courage experience. We are grateful for their amazing Navy SEAL mentors, who selflessly make time to stay connected, offering friendship and ongoing support. What a difference that commitment has made.
We are overjoyed to share Gracie and Landon’s stories here, two incredible young voices who make us tremendously proud. This is what our work is all about. For all that cancer can take away, we intentionally build our programs with the hope that they will return something lost or give something new to those resilient warriors who have gone through a pediatric cancer diagnosis. We hope we have done them the justice they deserve. Because ultimately, this is what we hope to build: a community where no child has to face the lasting impact of cancer alone, and where the friendships, courage, and connection forged through our programs continue long after the climb is over and they begin toward the summit ahead.
