Kitty Needs Your Help

Eight-year-old Catherine "Kitty" Jordan has been a soccer player since she was four. A fast and tenacious player on both offense and defense, she played at St. John’s Catholic School and participated in the Challenger Sports British Soccer camp in Madison, AL.

Catherine Jordan, aka "Kitty"

During this spring’s indoor season, the family noticed something wasn’t right when Catherine was often breathless after only a short sprint across the soccer field. Her words to a friend, “My energy is just not working.” At a weekend Girl Scout campout, Catherine grew so tired while hiking, she couldn’t make it back to the cabin on her own.

The family feared it might be anemia, a virus, or possibly asthma. However blood work confirmed a deeper horror: Leukemia. Her parents took Catherine to Children’s Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama on April 6, 2009. The next few days produced a frightening diagnosis of Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) that would require intense chemotherapy and the need for a bone marrow transplant sometime later this year.


Complications from her first round of chemotherapy have kept Catherine from coming home between rounds; part of one of her lungs was removed. Mom lives at the hospital while Dad and brother, Patrick, travel back and forth from Huntsville to Birmingham on a regular basis. It is a difficult and painful process for any child and family to endure.

Catherine was blessed with a beautiful and strong spirit. In spite of the complications and hardships, she continues to live with the wonderful spirit that draws people close to her. Kitty, as she likes to be called, believes in her “girl power” and dreams of getting better, going home to her family, seeing her friends, and, of course, playing soccer.


To raise funds for Tennessee Valley families whose children are being treated for Acute Myeloid Leukemia, 10% of the ticket sales of the RCU vs Atlanta FC soccer game on June 27th will be donated to Kitty’s Miracle Fund and an additional $50 per goal scored by RCU will also be donated.

In September 2009, they will host our first-annual “Kickin’ for Kitty” charity soccer tournament. If you are interested in supporting this event, or if you are affiliated with a team that would like to participate, please visit our website, http://www.kittysmiraclefund.org, for more details.