Fresh Slice Cares…about Juvenile Arthritis

Cassie + Friends is excited to share that Fresh Slice Pizza’s charitable foundation, Fresh Slice Cares, is donating $1600 to help spread Juvenile Arthritis (JA) awareness and keep affected kids active through Team Cassie + Friends!

The goal of the Fresh Slice Cares Foundation is to “Help Kids be Kids” through sports and physical activity. Fresh Slice Cares places a special focus on children from underserved communities and children with disabilities, like JA.

As a Pizza restaurant, Fresh Slice Care’s director, Tamila Khayrullaeva, thinks that it is very important to place a focus on helping children, as she says “What do kids love more than Pizza!?”

Tamila and the entire Fresh Slice Cares team want children with JA to be able to run and play like all kids deserve to do. Their donation to will help support the purchase of Team Cassie + Friends’ T-shirts and hats which will be distributed to participants in one of our 11 Cassie + Friends run/walks across Canada as well as through our School Ambassador fun-run program.

Tamila, who first opened the Broadway-City Hall Fresh Slice franchise in 2021, has a very special reason to care about JA: her own niece, Aida, was diagnosed at age 4. Tamila, who is from Uzbekistan, where her niece still lives, recalls that one day Aida’s knees and ankles started hurting, and never stopped. It took a year and numerous doctors visits to receive an official diagnosis of JA, however, Aida’s treatment options have been extremely limited.

Today, Aida is 12 years old and sadly, the effects of long-term steroid use have had severe impacts on both her mobility and mental health. She enjoys swimming and hopes to soon join her aunt in immigrating to Canada.

As for Tamila, she wants to see her niece be a kid again and do the activities she loves, like running outside and kicking a ball. It was this personal longing for her niece that, in part, drove Tamila to become a director of the Fresh Slice Cares charity when she opened her Fresh Slice Pizza franchise in 2021 – and why she was so thrilled to receive a visit from Cassie + Friends.

Tamila wishes that there was an organization like Cassie + Friends in Aida’s home country of Uzbekistan as she thinks the Education, Research, and Connection opportunities that Cassie + Friends offers, especially the Youth Mentorship program, would help greatly improve the life of Aida and her family.

Cassie + Friends is incredibly appreciative of the support from Tamila and the entire Fresh Slice Cares charity. Their funding will help thousands of kids with Juvenile Arthritis across the country just “be kids.”

Want to get involved? Join Team Cassie + Friends at one of our 11 run/walk events across Canada, or organize a school awareness day and fun run in your community. Together, we can raise awareness about childhood rheumatic diseases and support kids in living their best, most active lives.