About ECF
For over 43 years, the Emmanuel Cancer Foundation (ECF) has been dedicated to helping hundreds of NJ families facing pediatric cancer. From our four regional centers, we serve families in every county in the state. Our free services bring strength, comfort, connection, and improved quality of life.
Mission
The mission of the Emmanuel Cancer Foundation is to provide New Jersey families faced with pediatric cancer a place to turn for comfort and relief through free supportive services uniquely tailored to each family.
​
From four regional offices across the state, we offer free in-home supportive counseling and advocacy; food, gifts, toys, and other material assistance, emergency funds to help pay for urgent expenses such as rent and utilities; and webinars, support groups, and family events that strengthen families and provide community.
ECF is unique because we help families with their day-to-day issues, at home, where families feel isolated and miss the supportive network found in a medical setting. We help families for as long as they have cancer-related needs, from one month to ten years.
history
After losing their seven-year-old son Emmanuel (“Manny”) to Burkett’s lymphoma in 1981, Joseph and Susan Vizzoni experienced firsthand the overwhelming emotional, practical, and financial strain pediatric cancer places on families. While medical treatments were advancing, they saw that families often lacked the day-to-day support needed to cope with the realities of a child’s diagnosis. Determined to turn their grief into something meaningful, they founded the Emmanuel Cancer Foundation (ECF) in 1983 to help ensure that no family would have to face pediatric cancer alone.
​
What began with kitchen-table conversations and small acts of kindness has grown into an organization that has supported more than 2,000 New Jersey families facing pediatric cancer. From the beginning, ECF recognized that cancer affects the entire family, not just the child diagnosed. Today, ECF continues to provide free, in-home support including counseling, advocacy, practical assistance, and wellness services tailored to each family’s unique needs, helping preserve stability, dignity, and quality of life throughout the cancer journey.
​
