Benefit dinner, auction, dance for 12-year-old with cancer

Harmony Hutchings, a 12-year-year old girl from Fenelon Falls, is fighting cancer — Burkitt lymphoma– and a neighbour is stepping up to help with a fundraiser dinner, auction, and dance to help the family out.

Chris Thompson, who lives below the Hutchings family in an apartment in Fenelon Falls, says the Dec. 15 event will be held at the Fenelon Falls Legion. The roast beef dinner and auction are $25, with the dance included. Or, the dance can be attended separately for $10 and features the Harry Peterson Band.

Thompson says the family has a lot of costs, including the need for new clothes for Harmony who has lost 80 pounds since the diagnosis occurred in June. Her mother and father — Lu Hensman and Rob Hutchings — are trying to stay with her as much as possible at Ronald McDonald House and Sick Kids. With Hensman only collecting Employment Insurance now and her father — who was working in construction but is no longer due to depression — finances are tight, says Thompson.

The family friend points out that in April, earlier this year, Rob Hutchings was hailed as a hero for pulling a man out of a burning house.

“Now his daughter is in serious condition,” says Thompson.

Tickets for the fundraiser are available at the Fenelon Falls Legion, Grr8 Finds, the Lighthouse Restaurant Fenelon Real Estate, and the Country Cupboard, or call 705-344-7171.

According to WEB MD, Burkitt lymphoma is a form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in which cancer starts in immune cells called B-cells. Recognized as the fastest growing human tumor, Burkitt lymphoma is associated with impaired immunity and is rapidly fatal if left untreated. However, intensive chemotherapycan achieve long-term survival in more than half the people with Burkitt lymphoma.