They’d come to film a program called “Rock Cancer.” All of the thirteen young participants have had cancer; some are in remission and some use prosthetics. Yet when the segment aired on January 28, millions of viewers saw them clamber up the gym’s painted concrete walls using small, colorful blobs of polyurethane for hand- and footholds. Seven-year-old Zachary Hodge called his climb of more than thirty feet “too easy.”

A TV crew films seventeen-
year-old cancer survivor Vara James at a Rock Cancer climb at Planet Rock in January. “Too often, kids with cancer are seen as weak rather than powerful and strong,” the Community High junior says. “You get tired of seeing the same bald kid on a commercial, morose. This program can do a lot for a lot of kids around the country.” The broadcast inspired a Philadelphia teen to launch a Rock Cancer there. | Photos: Mark Bialek

Afterward, Vara James, seventeen, described the experience as “pretty crazy.” Diagnosed in 2016 with Wilms’ tumor, a kidney cancer, she completed chemotherapy. But afterward, recalls her pediatric neuro-oncologist Carl Koschmann, she told him, “‘I don’t feel strong. My hands and feet are tingly and numb.’”

Koschmann, a rock climber since he was a child, recalls thinking that Vara was a “brave, motivated kid.” He wondered, “What if we could make progress on some of those deficits with rock climbing?”

With Vara and her mom, Emily Gordon, Koschmann launched Rock Cancer in 2017. Gordon initiated the program’s GoFundMe—but says her most important job is supplying ice cream at the end of each monthly session.

 Vara appreciated the national attention. “Too often, kids with cancer are seen as weak rather than powerful and strong,” the Community High junior says. “You get tired of seeing the same bald kid on a commercial, morose. This program can do a lot for a lot of kids around the country.”

After the NBC segment ran, Kosch-mann received a flood of comments, as well as inquiries about making donations. The most unexpected and exciting upshot, he says, was from Jesse Elmore, “a thirteen-year-old cancer survivor from Philadelphia wanting to start his own branch in Philly.”

Jesse had a different take on bald heads. “When I grow up I want to be a pediatric oncologist just like you,” he emailed Koschmann. “Seeing the kids without their hair reminded me of how tough my chemo was and how cool it would be to have something like that here.”

Jesse, his father, Koschmann, Vara, and Planet Rock climbers and employees met with similarly qualified folks in Philly over Zoom several weeks later to hammer out details. The second Rock Cancer should open there this spring.