From a Mother’s Loss to a Mission of Hope: How Michela Haywood Is Carrying Kaylan’s Legacy Forward
After losing her daughter Kaylan to DIPG, Michela Haywood turned an unimaginable personal loss into a mission to support families facing childhood brain cancer. Through Kaylan Strong’s Fight Like A Warrior Foundation, she is working to ensure that no ‘Ohana fights alone.
A Daughter’s Legacy Becomes a Mother’s Mission
Some organisations begin with a business idea. Others begin with a problem that someone believes can be solved.
Kaylan Strong’s Fight Like A Warrior Foundation began with love, loss and a promise.
At its heart is Kaylan Jean Kuʻumomimakamai “Momi Girl” Haywood, an adventurous, funny and fiercely spirited 11-year-old whose life left a lasting impression on everyone around her.
Kaylan loved gymnastics, swimming, sweets, making slime, singing, dancing and spending time with her friends and mother. She was also an accomplished young athlete. After beginning gymnastics at around eight years old, she went on to compete and, in November 2017, became a Vault Champion, while placing second all-around.
But Kaylan’s story would take a devastating turn when she was diagnosed with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG), a devastating form of childhood brain cancer.
For Michela, Kaylan’s mother, the experience changed everything.
The foundation she established in 2019 was born from that journey—and from a determination that the experience should lead to something larger than grief.
Turning Grief Into Action
Michela knows what it means to sit beside a child through the most difficult moments imaginable.
She also knows how important support can be for a family navigating uncertainty, fear and the practical pressures that come with caring for a seriously ill child.
That firsthand experience is central to the foundation’s identity.
Its guiding belief is simple: “No ‘Ohana Fights Alone.”
Rather than approaching families from a distance, the organisation is built around the perspective of someone who has personally walked the same road.
That is also what Michela identifies as the foundation’s greatest strength: being there for a family in a way that only a mother who has experienced the same journey can.
The mission extends across the Hawaiian Islands, with a focus on raising awareness of DIPG and pediatric brain cancer while providing families with compassion, guidance and practical support.
Support When Families Need It Most
For families facing childhood cancer, emotional support is only one part of the challenge. Everyday expenses can become another burden at a time when parents want to focus their energy and attention on their child.
Kaylan Strong’s Fight Like A Warrior Foundation is therefore working to provide tangible financial assistance alongside its wider mission.
Its current goal is to award one family each month a $500 grant, which can help cover essentials such as rent, fuel, food or bills.
The foundation also provides a one-time $500 payment toward funeral expenses for families experiencing the loss of a child.
These initiatives reflect a practical understanding of what support can mean: sometimes it is not about solving everything, but about taking one burden away when a family is already carrying too much.
A Mission Rooted in Kaylan’s Own Wishes
What makes the foundation’s story particularly powerful is that its purpose is not simply being created in Kaylan’s memory. It is also inspired by the way she thought about others during her own fight.
Even while facing her own battle, Kaylan wanted her family to help other families experiencing similar struggles.
That desire has become part of the foundation’s purpose.
Today, Michela and the organisation carry forward what they describe as Kaylan’s legacy of selflessness, courage and hope, working toward a future in which families confronting DIPG and childhood cancer can find support within their community.
The foundation’s work is therefore both deeply personal and outward-looking: remembering one child while trying to help many others.
Building a Compassionate Community
Michela’s challenge is unlike that faced by a conventional entrepreneur.
There is no easy separation between personal experience and organisational mission. The very reason the foundation exists is connected to one of the most painful experiences a parent can endure.
She has also faced the reality of supporting other families as they go through experiences she knows firsthand—including sitting beside ‘Ohana as they face the loss of their child.
That makes advocacy demanding on both an emotional and human level.
Yet it is precisely this lived experience that shapes the foundation’s approach.
Its values are compassion, dignity, support and hope. The objective is to create a community where families can find reliable guidance and resources while knowing they are not facing their journey alone.
From Local Support to a Bigger Vision
The foundation’s ambitions extend beyond its current programmes.
Looking ahead, it aims to expand its support to families across Hawaii battling DIPG and childhood cancer, including increasing monthly assistance to $1,000 for families fighting DIPG or terminal childhood cancer, supporting five childhood-cancer families each month with $500 grants, and increasing funeral assistance to $1,000.
There is also a larger ambition: funding childhood brain-cancer research in Hawaii and contributing to the search for a cure.
That progression—from immediate family support to research—illustrates the broader vision behind the foundation.
It is not only about helping families survive the practical realities of today. It is also about contributing to a future in which fewer families have to experience them at all.
Following the Heart
For Michela, entrepreneurship and advocacy are ultimately driven by conviction rather than conventional measures of success.
Her advice to women is straightforward: follow your heart and your passion, regardless of what is happening around you.
In her case, that philosophy has taken a deeply personal form.
Kaylan’s life may have been far too short, but the foundation created in her name is turning her story into an ongoing source of support for other families.
In doing so, Michela Haywood is building more than an organisation.
She is building a promise to families across Hawaii: that when a child is fighting, their ‘Ohana should not have to fight alone.