AURORA, Colo. -- For some families, the holidays can be tough — especially those spending Thanksgiving away from home while their children fight cancer.
A Littleton family knows that fight all too well and has made helping those families their life's mission.
What started with delivering a piece of pie to a little boy in the hospital on Thanksgiving nearly two decades ago has turned into hundreds of pies — and even entire meals — at Colorado Children's Hospitals to families in medical crisis.
"He really pulled us through every day. He was so sweet," said Beth Wood, looking through a scrapbook filled with memories of her son, Kyle. "He was 6 years old. He had Leukemia."
She and her husband, Roger, remember the Thanksgiving they spent at Children's Hospital, when their little boy insisted on bringing pie to the little boy across the hall who was alone.
"When Kyle passed away, we thought, 'We need to bring them a pie,'" said Wood, and in the nearly two decades since Kyle Wood passed away, his family has kept his memory alive with a foundation named after him.
"We’re just a small foundation that came together... formed under the saddest of events, losing a child," said Roger Wood. "We have been able, through our grief and pain, to find a way keep his memory alive."
Every year, the large extended family and friends gather to deliver pies at Children's Hospital Colorado and Rocky Mountain Children's Hospital, as well as entire meals to Brent's Place, a housing nonprofit for families dealing with medical crisis.
"What providing these meals really does is it helps them take one step back and take a big deep breath," said Allen Browning, the Family Services Director with Brent's Place. "This is the gift of time. Quality time where they can just put the meal in the oven and not worry about hours of cooking because they have enough to worry about."
On Wednesday, the family delivered more than 44 meals to families who expressed their gratitude.
"It means a lot to us because we're just in need of help right now," said Amada Yanes, whose stepson is in the hospital awaiting a transplant. "I really appreciate it. We’re all supposed to get together tomorrow and have a good time. And who doesn't love gravy?"