A little About TJ, aka Thomas James Bertges, who, on Sep 30th 2006 was Diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Pro-B. He is a 14 year old caucasion male, which puts him at High Risk. The Doctors say it is going to take at least 3 years and 2 months for TJ to beat this Cancer.

TJ decided to accept his new challenge in a different way, and find something he would enjoy doing but also help others that edure the same new challenges as himself. TJ needed to get a few hats, to try to cover his head, which is currently without hair due to Chemo Therapy to help him in his fight against his cancer. With looking at different information sources and realizing he is definetly not on his own when it comes to having cancer as a child, he began to wonder to himself, “If I need a few hats to cover my head, EVERY child that goes through this does too!”. This gave TJ a great idea of something he could do, not only to help others, but to also help him pass his years of recovery by giving himself something to keep his mind off of his misery. At that point, TJ then decided he would start collecting different hats from anywhere and everywhere. TJ even went as far as seeing how many hats it might take to break a world record. The number is quite high, but so is the amount of children in this country and others that are inflicted with such terrible diseases and various forms of Cancer as TJ now has.

One issue with TJs great idea, is that his family really does not have the money to buy thousands upon thousands of hats, even if it is for a great cause. TJ will need help from all of us, not only for his family to help pay the medical bills, but also in his journey to collect all those hats, so that one day when he has beaten his Cancer, he can finish his journey by passing out all those hats to other children affected with Cancer, which is his dream to do once he has beaten the World Record AND beaten his Cancer.

TJ needs donations of HATS to help beat the current record of about 83,000 hats held by a man in Minnesota who started collecting hats in 1970. TJ is looking to claim that record for himself, with help from everyone.

After he claims that record, he wishes to give all the hats back to other children with Cancer. TJ wants to travel to the children and distribute the hats to them himself. If you or anyone that you know would like to help our TJ beat that record, we have set up a PO box for you to send the hats to, and he promises to wear them at least once. We will also get a picture of him wearing each hat and put them here on the web site. TJ will then store them away till the day he has enough hats to claim the record, then begin the final run of his journey by passing them out to kids all around that will then be fighting his same fight against Cancer.

If you would like to donate a hat to his cause please send it to:

TJs Journey
P.O. BOX 888781
Grand Rapids, MI 49588-8781