A Face of Cancer March 3, 2011
Posted by John Stephens in : Charity , add a commentWe call our product timeshare. The idea of sharing time with others on vacation, or sharing the unit we buy or rent with family or friends with whom we want to share time. Sharing time with the special people in our lives is the real joy of the timeshare concept.
Sometimes, the ravages of cancer can interrupt those plans and the time we find ourselves sharing with others becomes much more meaningful. Especially when the disease strikes a child.
7-year old Caleb Cook of Rochester, New Hampshire, suffers from a rare form of cancer that can develop in the connective tissues of young children. Called rhabdomyosarcoma, it is a form of childhood cancer that affects tissues of the body that would normally develop into skeletal muscles.
Caleb is receiving treatment at the renowned Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Mass., but there is a significant cost involved, which is why businesses and members of the southern New Hampshire community gathered for the Caleb Cook RMS Fund Benefit to raise money for the Cook family as their son fights against the disease.
BuyaTimeshare.com was one of 10 companies sponsoring the event on February 19th, which featured the band Blind Spot, food and drink and a silent auction. The money raised will go toward Caleb’s medical costs and the evening demonstrated the significant community support shown towards the Cooks according to those who attended the event.
Peter Emery, our Sales Director at BuyaTimeshare.com, was one of those in attendance.
“It is a terrible tragedy when children are afflicted with something like this. I have two young daughters around Caleb’s age and I don’t know what I would do if anything like this happened to one of my girls,” said Emery. “It is heartening to see the community rally around the Cook family this way and we all hope and pray that Caleb can beat this.”
Caleb’s treatment includes regular rounds of chemotherapy at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Since its founding in 1947, the Institute has been committed to providing cancer patients with the best treatment available while developing cures through cutting-edge research. Dana-Farber specializes exclusively in cancer treatment and research, is a Harvard Medical School affiliate and has been ranked as the best cancer hospital in New England and sixth best in the nation in U.S. News and World Report‘s “America’s Best Hospitals” survey. More information on the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute can be found at http://www.dana-farber.org/.
Event organizers are still tallying up the generous donations from the benefit and we’ll provide an update to the evening when those figures are released.
To follow Caleb’s journey, you can follow on his Facebook Page by clicking here or by going to the website at http://www.ccrmsfund.bbnow.org/, which was set up for the Benefit. Donations are still being accepted and you can make a donation to help with Caleb’s medical costs by clicking here.