Women's basketball team walk for leukemia
Mariska's interest in the Light the Night Walk came about because of her friendship with Cameron Scherer, a four-year old leukemia patient and the son of the youth minister at Mariska's church, Lakeshore Christian Church in Antioch. Mariska has been Cameron's baby-sitter and his special friend. When Mariska took other members of the team to church with her and introduced them to Cameron, they, too, became interested in Cameron and his fight against leukemia. The women decided that they needed to do something for Cameron and agreed to raise funds by participating in the walk.
Mariska and Cameron's mother, Amy, created T-shirts with a picture of Cameron on the front for the team to wear in the walk, and tonight at 7 P.M. when the women walk the 2.4 miles of the Granny White Park route, they will wear those shirts and carry illuminated balloons. Each woman on the team donated $10 in order to participate in the walk.
Cameron was diagnosed with leukemia in June 2004. He has three years and three months of treatment ahead of him. The good news is that the type of leukemia that he has is 80-85% curable because of the research that has been done on this type of leukemia.
Mariska and the women on the Lady Trojans team will be working tonight to ensure that the research on this illness will continue.