John Birnie with the last load of recyclables donated to the Donovan family.
Image Credit: Facebook
July 31, 2015 - 11:58 AM
KAMLOOPS - If seven weeks of recycling is piling up in your house, why not donate all the extra bottles to a local family trying to make ends meet while their five-year-old daughter battles cancer for the second time?
Samantha Donovan is currently undergoing treatment for a rare form of leukemia known as Burkitt's. Four months ago, her parents Allison and Tyler packed up their lives and moved to Vancouver after hearing her cancer returned.
Back home, Judy ‘Nana’ Birnie — Samantha's grandmother — is managing fundraiser efforts to keep the family afloat.
“They’re really struggling. We’re all being positive. My husband and I are doing everything we can to get income to survive,” Birnie says.
Through an account set up at General Grants on the North Shore, Birnie says locals can drop off bottles and cans and donate the return amounts to the Donovan family.
"The community here is really rallying together. It’s great because they have no income at all,” Birnie says.
Birnie says people making drop offs can hand over the bag and say it’s for the Donovans. Around $1,000 has been collected so far.
Samantha is currently awaiting more chemotherapy treatments and then a bone marrow transplant is being planned.
“Sam is doing fairly well,” Birnie says.
Birnie will be on Victoria Street during the farmer’s market on Aug. 15 to sell bracelets and raffle off a prize. She will have information available on bone marrow transplants and blood donations as well.
If you would like to donate bottles and cans to the Donovan family, but are unable to deliver them to General Grants, Birnie and her husband will come pick them up. Contact them at 250-579-2279.
For more information on Samantha, visit her page on Facebook called Team Super Everybody.
To contact a reporter for this story, email Glynn Brothen at gbrothen@infonews.ca, or call 250-319-7494. To contact the editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.
News from © iNFOnews, 2015