Written by John Ferrari | Photographed by Jeff Berting
Manhattan Beach brothers Robbie Knowles and Dylan Knowles saw how cancer
affected their family as they lost an aunt, uncle, cousin and great-godmother
to the disease. After their aunt Tara passed away from pancreatic cancer,
the two—then both students at Mira Costa High School—wanted
to show their love and support for their family and everyone affected
by cancer: friends, loved ones and those battling and surviving the disease.
Hugs work and words do too, but Robbie and Dylan come from a musical family,
so writing a song was their solution. Their grandmother wrote Broadway
show tunes. Their father plays and composes music, and the boys grew up
playing music with him. So the two penned the song “We’ll
Never Stop Fighting.”
“Our dad has been writing music almost his entire life,” Robbie
explains. “It’s always been a really big aspect of our lives,
so this was something we knew how to do. We just wrote it for our family,
and when we played it there were a lot of tears. It was our way of saying,
‘We love you, and we’re here for you.’ I think they
all loved it.”
A family friend and music producer did too and encouraged Robbie and Dylan
to record their song and an accompanying music video. The song is inspirational,
and the video will bring a tear to your eyes, but the brothers went one
step further—raising more than $10,000 through sales of the song
at 99 cents each.
Robbie, now a freshman at the University of San Diego, and Dylan, a junior
at Mira Costa High School, donated the money to nonprofits including the
American Cancer Society, Cancer Support Community-Redondo Beach, Tour
de Pier, the Hirschberg Foundation, the Uncle Kory Foundation and other
local organizations.
The two don’t plan a follow-up or to pursue careers in music. “I
love playing music,” Robbie explains, “but it’s something
I do for myself more than anything.” Still, the experiences they
had composing and performing the song and meeting career survivors in
the community were humbling and rewarding, and they hope their song will
continue to inspire those battling cancer. They dedicate their song “to
all the courageous warriors out there and to those we lost but will always
love and remember. We will never stop fighting.”
The Knowles’ fundraising campaign continues to this day, and all
monies will be donated to various cancer support groups. You can watch
the video for “We’ll Never Stop Fighting” at neverstopfighting2018.com.
The song is also on Spotify and is available for use by nonprofit organizations
that would like to incorporate it in their efforts to raise funds to beat
cancer. •