Heartfelt fundraisers sign of health, caring

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This article was published 11/04/2024 (884 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In recent days we’ve seen a pair of truly admirable community efforts in Brandon to raise funds in the name of children who have endured harrowing medical experiences.

Brave little Olivia Baessler died at the age of four after battling congenital issues relating to her heart and esophagus. Born six weeks premature, she underwent surgery for esophageal atresia just 30 minutes after she was born. Eight weeks later, she had to travel to Edmonton for open heart surgery. She also became the first person in Canada to receive a groundbreaking surgery employing magnets to connect her esophagus to her stomach.

Since her death in 2020, money has been raised in Olivia’s name for equipment purchases at Brandon Regional Health Centre and to help pay for medical school scholarships. But it was the Brookwood-area park named to honour her — Olivia the Brave Park — that has been the focus of fundraising efforts this month.

The City of Brandon has set aside $100,000 to develop the neighbourhood park Olivia loved to visit on her tricycle, and the community has until April 19 to raise additional funds to make the play structures at the park something special.

Since the call went out, the community’s response has been “exciting and overwhelming,” organizer Amber White told the Sun’s Colin Slark last week. As of April 4, more than $10,000 had been raised and local philanthropists Gord and Diane Peters, who are family friends of the Baesslers and knew Olivia, have agreed to match all donations up to a $50,000 maximum.

“It’s just another testament to Olivia’s strength, her tenacity,” Diane Peters said of the public’s response. “She was just a brave little girl, so I believe that her community are taking another page from her book on being kind and good to each other.”

Olivia’s mother, Crystal Baessler, said the fundraising success, which she called “loving and kind,” shows community spirit “and how much the people around you care.”

It also reflects on Olivia herself, she added, pointing out that every fundraising activity associated with her name since she passed away three years ago has seen donations “just pour in without people even knowing her.”

One of the features that organizers hope to add to the park with the donated funds is a swing set, which Crystal said would be a fitting tribute, since Olivia spent hours on the park’s lone swing. “Every time we left the park at nighttime, she’d be pedalling her bike crying all the way home,” Crystal said.

Not all serious childhood medical conditions end in tragedy, thankfully, and this week École Harrison held a fundraiser to celebrate the cancer-free diagnosis of one of its Grade 6 students.

Diagnosed one year ago with a type of cancer called neuroblastoma, 11-year-old Jesse Olson underwent seven rounds of chemotherapy, two stem cell transplants over the summer and fall, and “multiple, multiple blood transfusions,” his mom Amy told Sun reporter Michele McDougall.

Jesse’s teacher, Brady Skinner, described the boy as hard-working, positive and kind, loved by all the staff.

The wonderful news that Jesse had been declared cancer-free led to a fundraising celebration involving some 345 students and dozens of staff members in the school’s gymnasium on Tuesday. Staff members lined up to have pies plastered to their faces and vice-principal Shawn Lehman volunteered to let students duct-tape him to the wall, pinning him under thick layers until he resembled a fly caught in a giant web.

It was all in good fun and the event raised $3,000 as of Tuesday. The money will be used by Jesse’s parents to help cover some of the expenses they incurred during their son’s cancer treatment.

For Jesse’s parents, the gesture by the school was “unbelievable.”

For École Harrison principal Eva Eberts, it was a lesson for all her students that “sometimes life throws us a curveball, and we just really need to come together and support each other through anything that life might throw our way.”

For Brandon, it’s the sign of a healthy, caring community.