Inspiring role model
The cancer fight mounted by Columbus Middle School eighth-grader Alana Cook has been brave and inspirational. Since her diagnosis a year ago that she had a rare and malignant form of brain cancer, she’s undergone surgery, radiation and chemotherapy and has bounced between hospitals in Chicago and Indianapolis for treatments.
On July 7 she heard the best two words she could imagine: cancer-free. Her latest diagnosis is great news not just among her family and friends but also to the community as a whole that has rallied around her.
Ideas grilled to perfection
Faurecia employees are back with more one-of-a-kind grills that they have designed as a fundraiser for Our Hospice of South Central Indiana, part of the annual Labor Day weekend concert.
Last year’s grills — much larger, but really too big to be placed in most people’s back yards — raised $3,520 in raffle revenue. Organizers hope this year’s variety of grills generate increased interest and receipts.
The efforts by Faurecia employees to help raise money in a creative way for an organization that provides end-of-life care for area residents deserve thanks.
Wonderful gift
We commend an anonymous family for its generosity and Our Hospice of South Central Indiana for its assistance to provide a final, magical trip to Walt Disney World for a Columbus woman who is dying of gastric cancer.
Jane Ellen Watkins, her husband Phillip and their daughter Elisa — who have been to Disney World about 15 times — were treated to the trip by a local family that paid for it and accompanied them. And Our Hospice arranged for care for Jane Ellen Watkins with another hospice provider while she was in Disney World.
Those efforts created a wonderful, memorable moment at a difficult time and represent the best of human compassion.
