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JAMESTOWN – The Jamestown community is coming together recognizing September as Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, highlighting the importance of finding a cure to the often-deadly disease.
Municipal leaders raised a flag over city hall Wednesday with hopes of bringing cancer awareness, an illness that often impacts one to two children out of 10,000 each year in the United State.
Prior to the flag raising, both survivors and those currently fighting some form of childhood cancer spoke out, including Falconer native, and childhood cancer survivor, Sydney Kresconko.
Kresconko, who walked to the podium on crutches, explained that once cancers over, it doesn’t stop. At age 21, she will likely need a knee replacement due to side effects of her treatment.
“Because I was on steroids for two years to counteract the cancer treatment, all of the bone in my knee was dead, there was no blood flow able to go through my knee and the result would be I needed a sugary to take out all of that dead bone and replace it with bone graphs,” said Kresconko. “I just had that done in July, and unfortunately, it is not working that well.”
Kresconko says she is one of the “lucky ones” when some children, often so young, die from their illness.
An event to raise money to help local kids and their families struggling with cancer is scheduled to take place on Labor Day.
Hosted by community group Kallie’s Krusade, the fundraising event is happening Monday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Bemus Point Golf Club featuring a motorcycle ride, run/walk, corn hole tournament and more.
The group was founded in memory of a 21-month-old from Jamestown, Kallie Swan, who passed away from Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. The organization pledges to “fight like a girl” against pediatric cancer.
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