PHILADELPHIA -- With colorful heart, bow, and flower patterns, the backpacks designed by a Philadelphia cancer philanthropy look from the outside just like the dozens of others filling store shelves as a new school year approaches.

But these backpacks have a special mission: They are designed to hold an infusion pump, IV bag, and tubing for children with leukemia being treated with an at-home immunotherapy medication.

The 28-day infusion of blinatumomab allows children to spend less time in the hospital. But the bags typically provided with the drug are adult-sized — much too big for children to comfortably and safely carry.

Families have often resorted to buying children’s backpacks or purses, which aren’t designed to hold medical equipment.

Now a Philadelphia-area philanthropy has created a solution to help families coming to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia for treatment.

New child-sized bags designed by the Madelyn James Pediatric Cancer Foundation and Burning Tree Designs have a clear pouch and elastic straps in the front pocket to hold an infusion pump, as well as clips to keep the IV bag upright. Plastic tubing laces through the side of the bag to connect to the patient’s medication port.

The foundation, created by a Philadelphia couple after the death of their daughter who was treated for leukemia at CHOP, is donating 300 of the backpacks to the hospital for future leukemia patients.

Jackie and Dan Didio, whose daughter Maddy died of leukemia in 2022 when she was 14 months old, said they hope the bags will help improve quality of life for children receiving at-home cancer treatment.

“We want to see kids running on the playground with these bags,” said Jackie Didio, who lives in Philadelphia with her husband and their daughter Hannah, Maddy’s twin.

Honoring a leukemia patient

Maddy was diagnosed with leukemia at 3 months old.

Didio said she felt privileged that she and her husband were able to interview cancer programs up and down the East Coast to find the right fit for Maddy. They relocated from Virginia to Philadelphia so that Maddy could be treated at CHOP.

The family’s health insurance covered most of Maddy’s treatment and provided a stipend to put toward their long-term hotel stay. Dan Didio kept his job by traveling between Philadelphia and Virginia.

Maddy received several different treatments at CHOP, including the CAR-T therapy pioneered at Penn that has been heralded a cure for certain types of leukemia.

But Maddy’s cancer evolved, and became resistant to treatment.

After her death, the Didios decided that they wanted to honor her memory by creating a foundation that could help families with nonmedical expenses that can be an added hardship on top of significant medical costs.

The foundation gives away about $45,000 a year to families with a child being treated for leukemia to be used for rent, car payments, food, and other nonmedical expenses “that make it possible to be by your child’s bedside,” Didio said.

Innovative backpacks for cancer care

On Tuesday, volunteers from Philadelphia Insurance Companies helped set up the backpacks, attaching key chains and filling them with back-to-school supplies at the company’s Bala Cynwyd offices.

The national property, casualty, and professional liability insurance firm supported the initiative, named “Backpacks with Barbara,” in honor of Barbara Friedes, a CHOP medical resident and family friend of the Didios, who was fatally struck by a vehicle while riding her bicycle last year.

The 300 backpacks given to CHOP will be distributed over the next five years, helping families to “safely and comfortably manage their child’s treatment both at home and on the go,” said Susan Rheingold, an attending physician with the Cancer Center at CHOP, who serves on the foundation’s board.

©2025 The Philadelphia Inquirer, LLC. Visit at inquirer.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.