Sydney Reece Bjornberg

A Few Words About Us

AmericanCE is a family owned/operated company that started operation in 2005. We have built up a loyal group of customers, and receive many referrals due to the quality of our courses and excellent customer service. We always strive to exceed our customer’s expectations.

North Texas Chapter: The Cure Starts Now

THE CURE STARTS NOW - North Texas Chapter

Outside of running American Continuing Education, I (Steve) am an active director of the North Texas Chapter of the Cure Starts Now, in honor of our 12 year old daughter Sydney who passed away on June 26, 2013 after battling her DIPG brain tumor for 13 months. Sydney’s last wish was that no other child would have to go through what she and other children diagnosed with terminal brain cancer endure. We promised Sydney we would dedicate the rest of our lives to bring awareness and raise funding to help find a cure for childhood cancer. Sydney is right; no child should ever have to go through what she had to endure with no hope for a cure. No family should watch cancer rob their child of their abilities, one by one, eventually robbing them of the ability to move, to swallow, and breathe to live.

We firmly believe, together, we can ultimately win this battle by raising awareness for pediatric brain cancers. Awareness leads to increased funding, which we raise in honor of all children who have lost their battle with cancer. The North Texas Chapter of The Cure Starts Now is very active.

The Cure Starts Now is a 501c3 Federal Non-Profit organization consisting mostly of families like ours that have lost a child to cancer. We work tirelessly to raise funds and awareness dedicated to finding the "homerun" cure for ALL cancers, starting with one of the most deadly and difficult cancers: pediatric brain cancer. This year, The Cure Starts Now will fund over 2.5 million dollars in grants to the top researches and doctors in the world. You can view the grants already funded here. Sydney’s story is the reason we started our life time mission of raising awareness and money for childhood cancer.

After our daughter passed, we learned the statistics of childhood cancer. The statistics are what drive us every day to work harder. The statistics keep us up at night:


* 1 in about 285 children will be diagnosed with cancer.

* Karen Armstrong, yes the first man on the moons’ daughter, died of a similar brain stem tumor at age 3 about 60 years ago. The same treatment used for Karen was used on Sydney. 60 years later still no real progress! NO REAL HOPE! Sydney like so many other children with cancer want and need to have “hope” that they will get better. That hope, however, for so many of our children with cancer means hope for a miracle.

* Brain Tumors are the leading cause of death from childhood cancer. 1 in 5 kids diagnosed with cancer will not survive. If the children are fortunate to live to be 45 years old, 80% will have severe, to life threatening, side effects due to the drugs used.

* Cancer is the #1 disease killer of children in the U.S.: It kills more kids than AIDS, asthma, juvenile diabetes, congenital anomalies, and cystic fibrosis - COMBINED!

* The cause of most childhood cancers are unknown and, at present, cannot be prevented! In the past 20 years, only one new cancer drug has been approved for pediatric use.

* The federal budget for the “National Cancer Institute” is $4.6 billion. Childhood cancer research receives less than 4%. Pharmaceutical companies fund 60% of all adult cancer research, but they do virtually NO childhood cancer research. In summary, childhood cancer research receives about 1 penny of each dollar spent on cancer research even though kids make up about 20% of our population.

* Funding from larger cancer organizations doesn’t help too much; <1% of American Cancer Society total donations is directed toward childhood cancer research.

* Funding from larger cancer organizations doesn’t help too much; <1% of American Cancer Society total donations is directed toward childhood cancer research.

Sydney’s beautiful spirit is strong within us as we stand together to fight for the children who have lost their battle to pediatric cancer, for the children currently battling, and for the children who will be diagnosed tomorrow! We know that no matter what we do, we will never get our daughter back. However, we cannot look another child or parent in the eyes and not feel we have done everything humanly possible to provide them with Real Hope that Sydney and so many other children diagnosed with cancer do not have.

Thanks so much for spending the time to get informed. Feel free to browse The Cure Starts Now web site for additional information. This is a great organization striving to find a cure for our kids. If you would like to donate, be a sponsor for one of our events, or have any questions please contact Michelle via email: Michelle.Bjornberg@thecurestartsnow.org.