To fulfill one young man's last request, thousands of Wiregrass residents gathered at Johnny Henderson Park Saturday for the second annual Celebration of Life in the Park.
Brendan Franco, a 13-year-old boy who lost his battle to Stage lV lung and liver cancer on Sept. 20, 2012, had a last request to help raise money and spread awareness about gamma delta T-cell research.
After his passing, the Brendan Franco Foundation, Inc. and the Celebration of Life in the Park was created to help fund the Developmental Therapeutics program at Children’s Hospital of Alabama, where T-Cell research is performed.
According to studies, gamma delta T-cell immunotherapy research has the potential to reduce chemotherapy by 80 percent.
On Saturday, local residents came out to the park to enjoy live music, children’s yard games, trolley rides, inflatables, face paintings, snow cones, ice cream, food and drinks, a home-run derby and many other events.
All proceeds from the event will go toward funding the Developmental Therapeutics program at Children’s Hospital of Alabama.
Armand Franco, Brendan Franco's father, said the past year has been difficult since losing his son, but the community response, support and awareness has made the journey incredible.
"The Wiregrass is an amazing place to be and live," he said. "Not being from here, we no longer feel that (we're not locals). We feel that this is home, partly because of the incredible response from the community —the outpouring of love, support, you name it. It's been an amazing experience for us, although, again, we continue to grieve our son."
Armand thanked everyone in the community for supporting, participating and volunteering in the event.
"To date, we've been able to donate about $30,000 to this program," he said. "We hope to triple or double those efforts in the near future. (But) we just want to raise awareness of the fact that only 1 percent of all cancer research is spent on childhood cancer research. Knowing that, we want to raise awareness and fund pediatric cancer research, which is under-grossly funded."
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