STAR-BULLETIN / SEPTEMBER 2001
Ten-year-old Rochan Pinho, who has cancer, sold patriotic
buttons at Pearl City Shopping Center last month to raise
money for victims of New York's terrorist attacks.

Boy with cancer forced
to stop button fund-raiser

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By Treena Shapiro
tshapiro@starbulletin.com

Rochan Pinho, a 10-year-old boy with terminal brain and inoperable spinal cancer, has put his homemade button fund-raiser on hold because of a Child Welfare Services investigation.

Rochan had been selling patriotic buttons to benefit the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He was halfway to meeting his goal of $10,000 by Oct. 30, his birthday.

His parents said Child Welfare Services workers came to their home on Tuesday because of a report that the Pinhos might be exploiting Rochan, as well as possibly abusing and neglecting him and his five siblings.

"How can you use a 10-year-old boy with cancer?" asked his mother, Lori Pinho. "That wouldn't be a parent, that would be a nut case."

Rochan's parents have to get a doctor's note to prove his health has not been compromised before he begins a scaled-back fund-raiser, his mother said.

Child Welfare Services Branch Administrator Amy Tsark would not comment on the investigation of the Pinho family, citing confidentiality, but said CPS was looking into "anonymous concerns about the family, not specifically just the fact of selling the buttons."

Rochan said he was disappointed and angry about the investigation.

"They just kind of pulled the plug on it and all the button selling, and I couldn't get to my goal," he said. The money he already has raised remains in the bank.

As for the complaint about his welfare, he said, "I don't think there was anything wrong."