Stories worth sharing.

In the fall of 2022, Andrea Nieves was an undergraduate at Manhattan College in New York City, more than a thousand miles from her family in Naples, Florida. Pre-med. Ambitious. A junior with her sights set on medical school.

Then she fell.

A misstep with friends, a head injury, and a trip to a New York emergency room. The CAT scan revealed what no one in the family was prepared for: a deep-seated brain tumor, growing in a part of the brain that controls a critical fluid passage.

Suddenly alone and far from home, Andrea faced a flood of doctor appointments, treatment information, and decisions a 20-year-old shouldn't have to make alone. Her neurosurgeon in New York referred her to Dr. Michael Vogelbaum, Program Leader of Neuro-Oncology at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa — close enough to home that her family could finally be by her side.

On October 12, 2022, Dr. Vogelbaum performed a minimally invasive craniotomy. The four-hour surgery used a specialized tubular brain retractor and surgical exoscope — technology that displaces brain tissue rather than damaging it — to reach the tumor without harming the surrounding areas of the brain.

Andrea spent three days in the hospital. During recovery, a musician named Lloyd from Moffitt's Arts in Medicine program came to her bedside and played bass for her. A kindness she still talks about.

The experience of being diagnosed with a brain tumor was scary, especially when you're so young.

The tumor, diagnosed as a central neurocytoma, was confirmed benign and successfully removed. Recovery was followed by twenty-five rounds of radiation.

Three years later, Andrea is twenty-three. She's a biochemistry major at Florida Gulf Coast University, still on her path toward medical school. The dream the tumor tried to take from her, she's taking back.

Her younger brother, Darren — seventeen at the time, watching her fight — decided the Nieves family wouldn't keep the lesson to themselves. He saw families in waiting rooms. He saw parents stretched thin by hospital bills and helicopter flights. He saw the gap between what insurance covers and what a child's recovery actually costs.

So in 2025, he started Minds Over Tumors.

One family's diagnosis, turned into a foundation built for everyone else's.

In September 2025, WINK News reporter Amanda Hall sat down with Andrea and Darren Nieves to tell the story of how Minds Over Tumors began — and what it had become in its first year.

The segment, "Brain tumor battle inspires Naples teen to start 'Minds Over Tumors,'" aired across Southwest Florida as part of WINK News's Miracle Moments series. It reached the families we're built to support — parents in waiting rooms, neighbors learning a child's diagnosis, people wondering if there was anyone in the area who understood what they were facing.

Hall's reporting traced the arc of Andrea's diagnosis: a sudden fall during her college semester in New York City, a central neurocytoma discovered by CAT scan, surgery at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, and twenty-five rounds of radiation. Then the turn — Darren's decision, at seventeen, to channel his sister's fight into something that could help other families navigate the same medical and financial weight.

I think that that alone is the most miracle moment you could possibly ask for.

That was Andrea, reflecting on the fall itself — the freak accident that revealed a tumor she didn't know she had, in time to do something about it.

At the time the segment aired, the foundation had raised more than $35,000 and delivered more than 500 teddy bears to children in Southwest Florida hospitals — including Golisano Children's Hospital. We described the two pillars of the work then the same way we describe them now: a financial program for families and a care-package program for children admitted into treatment.

By mid-2026, those early numbers have grown. The foundation has now raised over $430,000. The teddy bear deliveries have multiplied. The family-relief program has begun receiving its first referrals. The research-grant pillar is being built.

None of it would have started without coverage like Amanda Hall's. Local journalism is what brought Minds Over Tumors to families who didn't yet know help was available. We're grateful to the WINK News team for telling our story carefully, accurately, and with the heart it deserved.

On November 8, 2025, Minds Over Tumors hosted its first-ever fundraising gala at the Elite Jets hangar in Naples. We called it A Night in Paris. We weren't sure who would show up. Two hundred seventy guests did, and they sold out every seat in the room.

The hangar was transformed for the evening — a private jet aviation facility turned into something between a Parisian salon and an art gallery. There was a cocktail hour. A live and silent auction. A band that took over the second half of the night and didn't let the energy drop.

One auction item made national news: the first gala in the country to auction a flight in a fighter jet. It went for a number that surprised even us.

By the end of the evening, the foundation had raised more than $200,000. Every dollar of it is now being directed into the family-relief work we built Minds Over Tumors to do — covering the gaps insurance doesn't, supporting families navigating pediatric brain tumor diagnoses, and funding the research-grant program we're building for the years ahead.

The entire event was spearheaded by Darren Nieves, then eighteen, who handled logistics, décor, fundraising strategy, sponsor relationships, and dozens of moving pieces that go into a sold-out gala. He was supported by family, a growing volunteer base, and partners who believed in the mission before we had a track record.

Naples City Lifestyle magazine covered the night in a feature by writer Lauren Rossi, with photography by hcfilmscreator. Their piece, "Minds Over Tumors: Turning Hope Into Action for Children Facing Brain Tumors," captured what the night meant — and what comes next.

Turning hope into action for children facing brain tumors.

The success of A Night in Paris didn't just fund our first year. It proved what was possible — and it set the foundation for what's now coming.

On December 3, 2026, we'll do it again. A Night of Miracles — Emerald & Gold Edition, our 2026 annual gala, will take place at the Royal Poinciana Golf Club in Naples. It will build on everything A Night in Paris taught us. The bar is set high. We intend to clear it.