A Family Fun Day Funding a Future Cure Held in Woodstock

Editor's note: this article was written by Harrison High School student Marie Zimmerman. 

A hot pink poster adorned with various pictures of a young child stood in the center of a local park in downtown Woodstock on April 27^th. The young girl in the pictures, Sarah “Hunter” Duke, was diagnosed with Anaplastic Medulloblastoma, a form of adolescent brain tumors, at the age of 5. Sarah lost her battle with the illness 3 ½ months after her diagnosis on September 1^st, 2008.

Brian and Jennie Duke established Hunter’s Helping Hands (HHH) in honor and memory of their daughter, Sarah “Hunter”. HHH raises money to support funds for the research and future cure of pediatric brain tumors.

“We want to keep continuing the fight and try to do what we can to eliminate this disease so nobody else goes through it,” Brian Duke said, explaining his purpose of passionately devoting time and energy into HHH.

The hot pink poster was one out of hundreds of various aspects incorporated into the Second Annual Family Fun Day hosted by HHH. The event had it all.

Vendors set up tents for the sale of clothing, jewelry, food, and even chiropractic massages. Bounce houses, ring tosses, arts and crafts, “touch a truck”, and open space for games of tag appealed to the kids.

A table piled with wacky hats and crazy masks rested alongside a high quality photo booth. Additionally, $12,000 worth of raffle prizes had anyone’s name on it.

The event was made possible through the generous contributions of numerous services. “We have many people that donated probably about $10,000 worth of sponsors,” Jennie Duke said.

The cloudy sky that accompanied the Saturday afternoon didn’t darken the outcome of the HHH event. The Second Annual Family Fun Day made $8,000, and the proceeds earned from the event will go to the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation (PBTF), a non-profit organization whose primary goal is to discover the cause of and cure for pediatric brain tumors.

Raising money for awareness, research, and treatment of adolescent brain tumors doesn’t stop there for HHH. Since the Duke’s lost their daughter, they’ve helped raise over S80,000 for the PBTF.  They plan to raise $60,000 for the PBTF this year, which would double the donations the PBTF received the previous year from HHH.

For more information about HHH, visit their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/huntershelpinghands.

For more information about PBTF, visit http://www.curethekids.org/.