Aleska McWhirter and her family raised more than $10,000 for brain cancer research, all while the Belwood teen is fighting a brain tumor herself.
On March 3, the McWhirter family donated the $10,306 raised with the help the Centre Wellington community to Dr. Sheila Singh’s lab at the McMaster University Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute in Hamilton.
“She does stem cell research and there’s specific research to the tumor that [Aleksa’s] got, which is DIPG (Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma),” said Aleksa’s mom, MJ McWhirter.
“She does that specifically and then she does stem cell research on just brain cancers in general and then brain tumors.”
Aleksa, 14, learned she had a pediatric brain tumor in September 2015, the day she was supposed to start high school.
The teen underwent six weeks of chemotherapy and radiation in the fall and has continued with homeopathic and steroid treatments.
Early this year the family learned Aleksa’s tumor shrank by 20% with her treatments.
“Our hope is that it stays stable and stays where it’s at and doesn’t grow again so that’s why we’re monitoring her symptoms,” MJ said.
“Some of them came back but we don’t know if it’s because of her medication or if it’s reactivating as they say, but they’ll do more scans.”
But the “Sassy” girl, as Aleksa’s family and friends call her, hasn’t sat idle.
Shortly after she was diagnosed Aleksa designed T-shirts to sell and raise money for pediatric brain tumor research. The T-shirts feature “Rosie the Riveter” on the front with the words “Fight like a Sassy girl” along her arm.
While the T-shirts were a big portion of Aleksa’s fundraising campaign, the community stepped up to help too.
In December, Centre Wellington District High School, where Aleksa was supposed to start Grade 9 in September, held numerous fundraisers for Aleksa’s cause and raised a total of $3,000.
MJ and Aleksa said all the teachers, especially Erica Parker, and the school’s student council were to thank for the school’s fundraising efforts.
Aleksa’s elementary school, JD Hogarth Public School in Fergus, also stepped up and fundraised for the family.
Her Grade 7 and 8 teachers Sarah Ladner and Heather Colburn began a GoFundMe campaign for the McWhirter family in December and held a Zumba for Aleksa night at the Centre Wellington Community Sportsplex on Jan. 30. The McWhirters thank all the staff and students at the elementary school for their support.
Though the money raised through the GoFundMe campaign was meant to help out the family, MJ explained they used some of those funds to bring the total donation to Singh’s team up to $10,000.
However, even though the family has made the $10,306 donation, they’re not stopping there. The T-shirts are still available for purchase and Aleksa has also started selling sweatshirts with the same graphic. All of the proceeds will be donated to Singh’s centre.
The T-shirts and sweatshirts are printed at Instant Imprints in Guelph.
“I also wanted to mention [Michael Kieley] at Instant Imprints because he’s the one who made all the T-shirts and he made the banner for Aleksa for Zumba,” MJ said.
“So he’s been really, really good and everybody loves his T-shirts and now hoodies.”
T-shirts or sweatshirts can be purchased by emailing MJ at mj.mcwhirter@everus.ca.
Aleksa, her father Kevin, her sister Shanel and MJ will all be traveling to London, England and Paris, France for seven nights in April through the Children’s Wish Foundation of Canada.
“I’ve always wanted to go to London,” Aleksa said. “In Grade 7 I think it was my biggest dream to go there but then I looked at what you can do in London and there’s not that much you can do, it’s mostly museums and stuff and so Paris has a lot of nice shopping.”
Aleksa is considering beginning classes at Centre Wellington District High School in September.
“We’ll try, maybe not four classes a day, but maybe two,” Aleksa said. “I don’t know, it all depends on how I feel at the end of August really.”
