Celebrating the Season of Giving: An Interview With Kinser Cancelmo

Kinser became more involved with both HD and JHD after her daughter Meaghan passed from JHD after spending four months in the hospital, with doctors unsure about how to help her. Kinser lost her husband to HD shortly after she lost her daughter.

While Meaghan was in the hospital, Kinser enlisted local news teams and radio stations to do programs to raise awareness for JHD.  The local radio station had Kinser on their morning talk show to speak about JHD. 

When Kinser lost her daughter and her husband within just a couple of months of each other, she decided it was time to work on starting a nonprofit business in memory of her daughter, “Meg's Fight 4 a Cure, Juvenile Huntington's Disease Foundation, Inc.” Kinser says, “I was appalled at the lack of medical services and places available for children/teens her age that had illnesses that the medical community couldn't handle. Especially JHD. I wanted to raise money for researchers to continue working on medicines and hopefully a cure for this horrible disease.  A group of my friends, who are now Board members of my business, began working on a fundraiser to raise these funds to send out to UC Davis in California. The fundraiser was held in September 2016, raising more than $20,000.”

Kinser is a board member of her local Massachusetts HDSA Chapter. She is involved in attending meetings quarterly and helping with the HD walks around the state, Education Days, as well as many other events that the chapter sponsors. 

Kinser recently took Meaghan’s service dog, Dixie, and finished putting her through a pediatric training therapy class. Dixie passed the test so that she is now an official K-9s for Kids therapy dog.