Boca Raton couple Michael and Camilla Goodwin’s charity helps families battling childhood cancer. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
By Tao Woolfe
Myla Carrera Goodwin was an extraordinary child — one whose intelligence, energy and compassion burned so brightly it was as if she knew, even before her cancer diagnosis, that her time on Earth would be brief.
Her parents, Camilla and Michael Goodwin, describe her as a kind of miraculous unicorn who taught them how to live in the light even as the shadows deepened around them.
And now, six years after Myla’s death at age 9, the Goodwins pay their little girl’s magic forward by helping other families navigate the hell of childhood cancer.
The Goodwins own and operate Crazy Uncle Mike’s, a popular live music, scratch kitchen gourmet food and dance venue at 6450 N. Federal Highway in Boca Raton. They founded Myla’s BeLeaf in 2021 to honor their daughter.
The charitable foundation — which has raised more than $3.2 million since its first fundraising gala at Crazy Uncle Mike’s in 2023 — provides grants up to $5,000 each to families struggling to pay basic bills after their children have been diagnosed with cancer.
More than 380 families have been helped by the foundation, Camilla Goodwin said.
Although the allotments are small, they can be a huge help to families struggling with rent or mortgage payments, utilities, transportation to hospital and treatment centers, car payments, fuel costs and groceries.
“We work to ease the financial and emotional burdens families face so they can focus on care, connection and healing,” Camilla Goodwin said. “Our vision is a world without childhood cancer. Until that time, we envision a world where families facing childhood cancer feel supported, understood, and surrounded by care.”
When Myla was 6, she was diagnosed with Wilms tumor, a rare kidney cancer that mainly affects young children. The cancer had already spread to her lungs.
“Our world stopped,” Camilla Goodwin said. “Nothing prepares you for those words.”
But the world did not stop for Myla, who faced her diagnosis with courage and hope. She held onto that poise through surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, and alternative therapy in Austria, her mother said.
A photo of Myla from that time shows her smiling and resolute, a rainbow unicorn hat perched on a head stripped of hair by chemotherapy. Her eyes are bright, her skin luminescent.
“She endured more than any child ever should, yet she continued to show us strength, grace and joy,” Camilla Goodwin has said. “Even in the hardest moments, her spirit remained intact.”
But after all the treatments, doctors determined that Myla had, by then, developed multiple lesions on her lungs and that the cancer had spread to her brain. Make her comfortable, the doctors said. She died Jan. 1, 2020.
Camilla Goodwin, 49, born and raised in Sweden, is a real estate agent who speaks multiple languages and holds degrees in psychology and business leadership. Michael Goodwin, 63, a native of New Mexico, has owned many bars and clubs. He loves music, entertainment and good food. He has had extensive executive experience in the hotel industry in the U.S. and internationally.
The couple met at a club Michael owned in Las Vegas. The Goodwins, who live in Boca Raton, have two other adult daughters.
Michael Goodwin said he is not as involved with the charity’s day-to-day operations as his wife, but enjoys turning Crazy Uncle Mike’s into a big, bold venue for Myla’s BeLeaf fundraising events.
And those annual events are extremely successful, he said. In August, the club hosted “Boca’s Got Talent,” a Boca Raton Regional Chamber of Commerce event designed to raise awareness and support for local families coping with childhood cancer.
The gala raised about $650,000 for Myla’s BeLeaf, thanks to many small donations and some very generous ones, Michael Goodwin said.
After Myla’s death, the Goodwins worked to establish relationships with hospitals and care centers to help identify needs and needy families, and to set up the charitable foundation, but it happened quickly and things fell seamlessly into place, he said.
“Myla’s magic was behind it,” Michael Goodwin said. “She was extraordinary. Hers was an energy of love, not loss.”
In the days and weeks following their daughter’s death, the couple repeatedly found leaves in improbable places. They came to believe that Myla had sent — and continues to send — foliage to comfort them.
“A leaf represents hope, renewal and growth, and those values reflect everything Myla stood for,” Camilla Goodwin said, explaining how Myla’s BeLeaf became the name of the charity. “Her spirit lives on through this foundation and through the lives it touches.”
To donate to Myla’s BeLeaf, visit mylasbeleaf.com.
Several charitable events throughout the year benefit the foundation.
The next event will be a Ladies’ Tea at the Delray Beach Club from 2 to 4 p.m. Oct. 17. Tickets are $150.
For more information, visit fundraise.givesmart.com/e/Gxk6gA?vid=1sd2f1.
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