Aina's life, and that of her family, changed suddenly when she was just six years old due to a brain tumor. Although benign, it affected vital functions such as her vision, and three surgeries and several sessions of radiotherapy were necessary to remove it. Eight years later, she still has to undergo routine checkups at the hospital, has frequent medical tests, and is learning to live with the aftereffects she will carry for the rest of her life. Because of the tumor, she is blind and suffers from several chronic illnesses that affect her daily life and independence. At school, classes and educational materials have been adapted so that she can keep up with her classmates. She has a support teacher who helps her in the classroom, and at home, everyone adjusts to her needs to make things easier for her. Her mother, Anna, explains that, despite the aftereffects of the tumor, they do everything they can to support her in this new life, which they want to be as normal as possible.

Ezekiel is only two years old and is not yet aware that he has saved the life of his older brother Jeremiah, who was born with a hereditary blood disorder called sickle cell anemia. His red blood cells, which are responsible for transporting oxygen throughout the body and are normally flexible and disc-shaped, were rigid and sickle-shaped, blocking the normal flow of blood and causing very intense pain crises. He had his first episode when he was only one year old, although he doesn't remember it. As he grew older, these attacks became more frequent and more severe, and the treatments he received were ineffective. The only alternative for a cure was a bone marrow transplant, but there was no compatible donor. Jeremiah couldn't run or play like the other children in his class; he tired very quickly, and the pain episodes could last for days, sometimes even requiring hospitalization. He once spent more than fifty days in the intensive care unit (ICU) of Son Espases University Hospital in Palma, the city where he lives with his family. His father explains that hospitalizations also increased over time, and by the age of nine, he had an episode almost every month that required him to spend a few days in the hospital. From a young age, he was given hydroxyurea, a medication that increases the production of hemoglobin—the protein that binds to oxygen when it circulates in the blood—and reduces pain crises in people with sickle cell anemia, also known as sickle cell disease because of the shape of the blood cells. He also received blood transfusions to increase the number of red blood cells in circulation, but despite these treatments, they were unable to alter the course of the disease, which was beginning to affect his vital organs and jeopardize his survival. This left Jeremías with only one option: a bone marrow transplant. But for this transplant to be effective, the donor needs to be a high match, usually a family member such as a parent or sibling.

The first agreements are being discussed Last Christmas Wham! and the nearly 1,000 attendees occupy the 90 tables that fill the main hall of the Museu Marítim de Barcelona. Just a few minutes later, the light dims and illuminated dancers stroll among the tables while a choir sings thePirates' Anthem from the musical Sea and skyWith this melody so fitting for the setting, the 4th Almendro Origen Charity Christmas Dinner began with a clear objective: to raise funds for a charitable cause. This year, the organization raised €80,500 for the Sant Joan de Déu Hospital, specifically for the SJD Pediatric Cancer Center Barcelona project. The dinner centered around a story that connects the hospital with the Catalan food chain. The protagonist is Aina, daughter of an Almendro Origen employee, who was diagnosed with cancer at age 14. Both she and her family are familiar with the work carried out by the professionals at Sant Joan de Déu Hospital, and although the SJD Pediatric Cancer Center Barcelona wasn't yet a reality when she was diagnosed, she recognizes the center as a valuable resource for children currently battling the disease.

Ona Lloveras was born with Shwachman syndrome, a rare inherited disorder that causes the pancreas and bone marrow to malfunction. She was diagnosed at the Parc Taulí Hospital in Sabadell at the age of two. Until she was six, Ona was frequently hospitalized for neutropenia, anemia, bronchitis, and various infections. At age 12, her bone marrow began to fail, leading to severe myelodysplasia, a type of pre-leukemia. In April 2013, the family was informed that the only solution was a bone marrow transplant, as chemotherapy would not resolve the problem in her case. No compatible donor was found, and so, on May 27, 2013, they opted for an umbilical cord blood transplant. Afterward, Ona—who was 13 at the time—spent many months hospitalized and isolated at Vall d'Hebron Hospital, first due to the transplant itself and then because of intestinal and skin rejection and the numerous infections she faced. "After a lot of things I don't want to remember anymore, I was able to go home," she explains now. However, she clarifies: "Home care didn't prevent a lot of trips back and forth to the hospital and having to take a lot of medication."

Bruna's favorite subject is physical education, like most children her age. She enjoys playing tag and fish with her friends in the playground, and also the activities she does outside of school, such as swimming and drawing with her little brother, Pau. Unlike other 7-year-olds, however, she does rehabilitation twice a week at the Institut Guttmann to improve her handling of the wheelchair she has used since she was very young. When she was just one month old, she was diagnosed with a tumor pressing on her spinal cord. She was treated with chemotherapy at the Sant Joan de Déu Hospital, and the cancer eventually disappeared. But the spinal cord injury that prevents her from walking will always be with her.

When Julia [not her real name] was only five months old, she was diagnosed with a rhabdoid tumor in her kidneys, a very aggressive and extremely rare type of cancer that has no effective personalized treatments. In all of Spain, only twelve cases are diagnosed each year, almost all of them in children under two years of age. At San Juan de Dios Hospital, her tumor was removed and she began treatment with chemotherapy and radiotherapy. In addition, they applied a type of immunotherapy that until now had only been used in adults. Together with researchers from the National Center for Genomic Analysis and the Institute for Research in Biomedicine of Barcelona (IRB), they spent a year evaluating the response to this therapeutic strategy.