Selling pencils decorated with butterflies and wearing yellow – the color for sarcoma awareness — helped Maya Curry, 10, and her sister, Ava, 9, celebrate their late father’s birthday and honor him with money raised for research into the deadly cancer.
Brian Curry, who died seven months ago, would have been 46 on Dec. 6, near the end of the week the girls organized at their school, J.T. Manning Elementary, in Westmont. They raised $820 and helped educate their fellow students about sarcoma, a rare form of cancer that develops in body tissues such as bone or muscle.
“We decided to do this to help find a cure,” Maya said. “I also want people to know how hard it is to have cancer.”
The funds, raised by selling pencils for $1 each at Manning and Westmont Junior High, were donated to the Edward Cancer Research Account at Edward Hospital in Naperville.
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The girls said they came up with the initial idea for the fundraiser in October after noticing the color pink everywhere during breast cancer awareness efforts.They and other students decorated their school with yellow and wore yellow clothing from Nov. 30 to Dec. 7. July is the month devoted to sarcoma awareness.
Butterflies were chosen to decorate the pencils for a special reason.
“The butterflies are important because ever since he died, we saw them everywhere,” Maya said. “When a butterfly came close to us, we felt like it was our daddy.”
Heather Curry, 43, said her husband was diagnosed with a soft tissue sarcoma cancer after a large tumor appeared in his abdominal area in 2012. He had surgery in January 2013 and was cancer-free for almost a year, she said, but then the cancer returned and he lived another six months.
“He was such a fighter,” Curry said. “He loved his family very much and didn’t want to give up. It was amazing to see this man fight back.”
She said she is very proud of her daughters.
“When they came up with the idea to do this in memory of him, my heart just swelled because I honestly thought this would help them (grieve),” Curry said. “It was just a remarkable thing to see these girls do this. They were so excited about helping others and to wear yellow for their daddy.”
The girls said they will always remember the precious moments they had with their dad.
“He was really playful,” said Ava. “He would hold me upside down and I was walking on the ceiling. He liked to have fun with us.”
Joseph Ruzich is a freelance reporter for the baiduhai.
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