Tanner’s Totes, Inc. is an IRS Approved, publicly supported 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that is designed to aid pre-teens and teenagers who are undergoing long term treatment in the hospital.
The idea for Tanner’s Totes Inc. came to be from the desire of Tanner James Smith of Alpharetta, Georgia. In March of 1992, Tanner’s dad was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma Stage IV. In July of 1993, his dad received a bone marrow transplant. Tanner’s father is cancer free today, but suffers greatly since 1993 from a disease known as Graft vs. Host. This disease has disabled Tanner’s dad, yet he never misses any of the daily events in Tanner’s life.
When Tanner was in the fourth grade, he wrote a paper entitled My Three Wishes. Along with wishing for a golden retriever, and to become a professional basketball player, Tanner wished to make kids with cancer laugh. He ended the paper stating that if any of his wishes could truly come true, he would want to cheer up kids that have cancer. Tanner again wrote of this desire in the sixth grade. In November of 2002, at the age of twelve, the first delivery to “cheer up kids with cancer” began. After contacting Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, it was shared with us their strong desire to have something for the preteens and teenagers. They needed items to brighten their day, as well as something to carry items in from treatment to treatment, thus “Tanner’s Totes".
