On August 1st 2012, three friends got together to talk about how they could support the Nahornys, whose 4-year-old son, Sammy, had just been diagnosed with cancer. That night Sammy's Superheroes was born. They created t-shirts and asked local Nebraska schools to support Childhood Cancer Awareness Month in September. Players, coaches, students and fans bought and wore Sammy's Superheroes t-shirts, with the funds to be donated to childhood cancer research. No one could have guessed how much money would be raised or how a community would come together to support a sweet boy and his family. Before they knew it, Sammy's Superheroes had raised nearly $40,000 for childhood cancer research!

In December 2012, as this group of family and friends were researching organizations to donate these funds to; the Nahorny family learned that Sammy was not responding to his treatment protocol. The Nahorny family & their care team began researching new hospitals, and clinical trials. What they found was shocking. While childhood cancer is the #1 cause of death by disease in children, only 4% of federal cancer research is allocated to children. At that time, only one new drug had been approved for pediatric cancer in 20 years. Chris and Erin Nahorny, Sammy's parents, describe this time as even scarier than when Sammy was first diagnosed. For more facts on childhood cancer, please see: CAC2 Childhood Cancer Facts

In early 2013, Sammy's Superheroes Foundation officially became a 501c3 non-profit organization with a mission to raise awareness & fund life-saving research for all types of childhood cancer. Since 2013, Sammy's has donated to projects across the United States & in December of 2019, donated their $1 MILLIONTH dollar to childhood cancer research. For more information on projects funded, please see here: SSF funded childhood cancer research