My name is Mac Bayly  and I was diagnosed with cancer at the age of seven. My family and I never imagined that something so powerful, so severe, and so trying could ever affect one of us directly. For two-and-half years my family and I battled the highs and lows of treatments, chemotherapy, and doctor visits. All during a time where all I wanted to do was live and act with the normalcy of any seven-year-old boy.

During this hardship, my family and I found great solace from organizations like One Step at a Time and The Ronald McDonald House. It was there that I found a place filled with children my own age that I could finally relate to and a place where my family found a support group to help them through that time. Since then I have forever been thankful for the wonderful volunteers at those organizations. 

I went into remission a few years later. I had beaten cancer. But it wasn’t just a personal triumph – it was a victory for my family and everyone that surrounded me during that time. My experience was not dissimilar to the thousands of children that visit these organizations every year. Since that time, organizations providing refuge for children and their families have become a philanthropic focal point for my family and I. We held annual family meetings to discuss and challenge ourselves to give back in support of causes that interested us. This practice of consistently generating and vetting new philanthropic ideas, led my brother Chris and I to build The Bayly Project, our own organization designed to unite our family, friends, and peers in support of the causes closest to our hearts.

Help us inspire optimism within every child affected by life-threatening illnesses. 

Let’s make it happen,

Mac