Alyssa Aguilar's 6 year old daughter Lola was diagnosed with B Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia on Halloween in 2024 and after being attacked by a Fungal Infection, passed away in early March of 2025, just a little over 4 months after her diagnosis.

To honor the memory of your beloved Lola, you started the Lola's Butterfly Effect Foundation.

It has only been 17 months since Lola's passing.

How difficult was it for you to motivate yourself to begin a nonprofit, which is not an easy thing to accomplish?

To be honest, I feel like...

Starting this foundation has helped me heal.

It's been a pivotal part in my healing process, and I don't think that I could have gotten through it as easily if I didn't have that or a way to give back.

It's been a place for me to hold my grief and my love for Lola and help other children.

There was a point when we were in the hospital that Lola had mentioned wanting to give toys to kids because she knew how happy it made her.

So I felt like I was doing her job.

That's exactly what you were doing.

And you were certainly granting her the wishes that she would have had as far as that is concerned.

Now, butterflies, how do they fit into the equation of the name of the foundation?

Yeah.

So the very first instance we had when we went into when she first got diagnosed, we went to she had to go to the ICU because of how bad she how bad of shape she had been and she needed immediate care.

One of our ICU nurses had, it was Halloween night, so she was dressed as a monarch butterfly.

And I thought it was cute.

She had little monarch wings.

We didn't think too much about it at that time.

But looking back at like the circle of how things happened, it's just so strange.

Yeah.

And we just kind of saw it as like a symbol of hope and transformation.

I know some cultures believe that butterflies are our loved ones visiting us.

And so I like to think that as well.

Well, I think it's a good thought.

And that's not the first time I've heard that people have said butterflies are visiting people in that situation.

To honor the memory of your beloved Lola, you started the Lola's Butterfly Effect Foundation.

It has only been 17 months since Lola's passing.

How difficult was it for you to motivate yourself to begin a nonprofit, which is not an easy thing to accomplish?

To be honest, I feel like...

Starting this foundation has helped me heal.

It's been a pivotal part in my healing process, and I don't think that I could have gotten through it as easily if I didn't have that or a way to give back.

It's been a place for me to hold my grief and my love for Lola and help other children.

There was a point when we were in the hospital that Lola had mentioned wanting to give toys to kids because she knew how happy it made her.

So I felt like I was doing her job.

That's exactly what you were doing.

And you were certainly granting her the wishes that she would have had as far as that is concerned.

Now, butterflies, how do they fit into the equation of the name of the foundation?

Yeah.

So the very first instance we had when we went into when she first got diagnosed, we went to she had to go to the ICU because of how bad she how bad of shape she had been and she needed immediate care.

One of our ICU nurses had, it was Halloween night, so she was dressed as a monarch butterfly.

And I thought it was cute.

She had little monarch wings.

We didn't think too much about it at that time.

But looking back at like the circle of how things happened, it's just so strange.

Yeah.

And we just kind of saw it as like a symbol of hope and transformation.

I know some cultures believe that butterflies are our loved ones visiting us.

And so I like to think that as well.

Well, I think it's a good thought.

And that's not the first time I've heard that people have said butterflies are visiting people in that situation.