Angel Wings Walk/Run raises funds for families touched by cancer

by Philip A. Janquart
 In a world seemingly gone bonkers, there are still plenty of good people around, and you don’t have to go far to meet them.
 Angel Wings Network held its 10th annual Walk/Run event Saturday, Oct. 9, which started and ended at Weiser City Park.
 Local residents, business owners, teachers, and many others came together to raise money for the non-profit organization that directly serves cancer patients and their families.
 Participants paid $25 to make the 5k (3.1 mile) trek from the park, up to Weiser Middle School, and back to Weiser City Park.
The event is one of two fundraisers held by the non-profit organization, which raises monies for gas cards to help patients and their families travel to medical appointments.
 “One of the primary support services we offer is transporting people to treatment. We offer that as well as providing gas cards to people who have a way to get there, but are struggling financially and, as you know, cancer will cause any family to struggle financially, so we provide $25 gas cards,” said event organizer and Angel Wings Executive Director Mabel Dobbs.
 The organization has already given out $10,000 in gas cards this year and is on target to provide about $14,000 in cards before the end of 2021, more than any year since local businesswoman Linda Roundtree founded Angel Wings’ 13 years ago.
 In 2019, before the pandemic, volunteer drivers logged over 17,000 miles transporting people to treatments throughout the Valley area.
 One family who has benefitted from Angel Wings’ services is Weiser resident John Harris and his six-year-old daughter Danni who is fighting a rare type of brain tumor.
 “Danni Harris is just one of the bravest young ladies that I have ever met in my entire life and she has the most beautiful smile, and she is going to kick cancer’s ass; we are just so sure of that,” Dobbs said.
 Danni kicked off the race by ringing a cow bell at the starting line.

Angel Wings’ other major fundraising event is a spring online auction that, in its inaugural year, was a huge success.
 “In spring 2020, we did an online auction and it was very successful, so that will probably become our spring event,” Dobbs said. “We do that around Idaho Gives, which is the first Thursday in May, and then we will continue to do the walk/run in the fall.”
 Idaho Gives is a program of the Idaho Nonprofit Center and is designed to bring the state together, raising money and awareness for Idaho nonprofits.
 Angel Wings serves about a 70-mile radius in Weiser from New Meadows to Homedale and, when possible, Nyssa.
 “We are the only non-profit in the area that does just what we do,” Dobbs said. “When somebody comes into our system, we put together a big gift bag for them that has a hand-made prayer blanket in there for them. In the past, they were made by our 4-H kids as community service. I now have a retired educator, Mr. Ralph Rowley, and he has just finished his 85th blanket and we’ll hit a hundred by the end of the year because he is doing one or two a week. He has been an angel.”
 Dobbs added that the organization couldn’t operate without the generous support of many residents, volunteers, and businesses, including Herb and Kelly Haun, of Haun Packing, which provided Angel Wings with office space beginning in 2018.
 Most participants at Saturday’s event have been touched in some way by cancer, including Weiser resident Laura Morris who, in 2020, discovered something wasn’t right.
 “I was getting ready for work one day and thought, ‘Something doesn’t look right here,” she said. “I had breast cancer, but it got into my lymph nodes, so they don’t know if it shot any place else in my body. I have to be on medication for at least five years, and we are crossing our fingers that it didn’t go anywhere else. If it did, I’ll be back to being bald.”
 Morris, who ended chemotherapy and radiation treatments about a year ago, says she is feeling better every day.
 “Alberta, we call her ‘Bert,’ from Angel Wings, was there for me,” she said. “Bert was just excellent. She called me all the time to check on me. She was going through a heck of a time herself, but she was still there for me.”
 Weiser varsity girls’ head soccer coach, Trine Loenberg, discovered she had cancer in May of 2019.
 “I had all the treatments, chemo and radiation, the whole package,” she said. “It was stage one and three breast cancer, but now I am cancer free. I feel great!”
 Trine took part in the run along with girls from her soccer program.
 Pioneer Elementary kindergarten teacher Chy Cardenas, whose husband, Adolfo, is the vice principal at Weiser Middle School, was on hand to take part in Saturday’s event.
 “We are here just to support this cause,” she said. “There are a lot of people who have been touched by cancer in some way and we wanted to come and do our part to support them.”
 Dobbs has also been affected by the disease.
 “I lost my dad to cancer. My mother had breast cancer twice, 20 years apart, so I’ve been touched by cancer just as everybody has,” said Dobbs who had a successful career in banking. “I’d make more money working at McDonald’s, but I love what I do.”
 For more information on Angel Wings, visit www.angelwingsnetwork.net. For more information on Idaho Gives, visit www.idahogives.org.