BY SAUNDRA AMRHEIN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
DEERFIELD TOWNSHIP -- Residents have offered their prayers and their money. Now they can offer their sweat.
Three "Mile for Kyle" fund-raising walks are planned this weekend for 2-year-old Kyle Hesselbrock, a Deerfield Township boy dying of Tay-Sachs disease.
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MILE FOR KYLE
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Three "Mile for Kyle" walks are scheduled during Saturday's West Chester FunFest in McGinnis Park. The walks will step off at at 1 3 and 5 p.m.
Kyle will help kick off the day's events at 11 a.m. as grand marshal of the parade, which runs from Keehner Park to McGinnis Park. |
Tay-Sachs is a rare genetic disorder that destroys the nervous system in children before killing them, usually by age 5. There is no cure for the disease, which was long prevalent in Eastern-European Jewish communities. But it also attacks non-Jewish families, such as the Hesselbrocks.
In the month since The Cincinnati Enquirer published a story about Kyle, donors have contributed almost $3,000 to the Kyle Spencer Hesselbrock Fund at Star Bank, said his mother, Suzanne Hesselbrock. "It's really neat to know there's always people in the community who care and reached out to us," she said.
At least 50 people have called, written or mailed donations from as far as Cleveland, Akron and Portsmouth, Ohio, after reading the story picked up by other newspapers.
A Miami University student offered to clean the Hesselbrocks' house. A Maine businessman is donating 1,000 greeting cards for the family to sell at FunFest. He plans to be there himself.
So far, 400 T-shirts have been sold for the walking event, said Spencer Traub, Suzanne Hesselbrock's father and code-enforcement officer for West Chester.
He thinks that number could balloon to 1,000 walkers. The money raised is being sent to the National Tay-Sachs & Allied Diseases Association in Massachusetts to help find a cure.
The outpouring of concern has helped Mrs. Hesselbrock and her husband, Andy, weather this ordeal, she said. It prompted her to return to church, which she had abandoned in her anger.
"It was natural for me to be angry and to pick God to be angry at," she said. "But so many people wrote and said it's not God's fault. It really got me to thinking, out of all the people God could pick to be the mother of Kyle, he picked me. Now I'm grateful.
"Kyle has taught me so much. He's taught me patience and understanding and compassion, and that there are good people in the world."
