On Saturday, Oct. 10, the Learning to Give class at Southwest Star Concept School hosted a Team Lemon Walk in Heron Lake for the fight against childhood cancer.
Walkers hiked the Heron Lake Triangle starting at 9 a.m. that day after paying a $2 registration fee to take part in the walk. The proceeds from that walk went to the Alex’s Lemonade Stand fundraising organization.
“We decided to do this and donate to this charity in honor of our fellow SSC student, Valoree Stevenson, who is battling cancer,” said Megan Thurk, a member of the Learning to Give class at SSC.
That effort involving 54 walkers completing a total of 112 miles on the walk Saturday in the snow and cold, resulting in more than $528 being raised to date. .
Stevenson, a Lakefield resident, is a junior at SSC this year and a member of the school’s FFA program. She also throws both shot and discus for the school’s track team.
“The Alex’s Lemonade Stand was started because a girl that had cancer had started a lemonade stand to raise money for cancer research,” Stevenson said. “What she was doing leaked out to the press and lemonade stands were started by others to raise funds for cancer research, too. Now there is a Lemonade Foundation. The Learning to Give Class at my school did this one in honor of me.”
Stevenson was diagnosed with cancer in May.
“I was tired and seemed exhausted all the time,” she said. “I was out for track and was staying up late doing my homework every night, so I thought it might just be fatigue. But that next Friday I went to the doctor and they couldn’t tell what it was. So they sent me to the Worthington Clinic for a CT scan. I was sent to St. Paul’s Children’s Hospital from there and they found out I had ovarian cancer. The tumor was removed the last week of May at Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis.”
For now, Stevenson is done with her chemotherapy treatments and she hopes she doesn’t have to have any more.
“I had four rounds of chemo,” she said. “I had my first round for five days and then was off of them for two weeks. I had three more rounds of the five-day chemo treatments with two weeks off between each round. It pretty much shot my summer.”
But Stevenson did not have to have any radiation treatments.
“I didn’t know until one week before school was to start whether I would be able to attend classes or not,” she said. “But I had scans done at the hospital and after those scans they told me I could go back to school.”
So Stevenson is back at SSC again this school year as a junior and has only missed one day of school so far because she had to return to the hospital for a checkup.
“That will happen once a month until November,” she said. “They left the porta-cath in my chest so they can give me chemo if I need it. That is how I received my chemo treatments this summer. The porta-cath will remain in my chest until at least November. It depends on how my scans are then as to whether I can have it removed or not.”
On “Make a Difference Day,” Saturday, Oct. 24, a fundraising event for Stevenson will take place at the Heron Lake Elementary School from 9 a.m. to noon. A garage sale is planned at the school as well as a pancake feed by the Heron Lake Fire Department and a bake sale featuring delicious goodies. There will be activities for the kids, including face-painting, bowling, games, crafts and prizes.
That day food items or money can also be donated to the Heron Lake Food Shelf.
Money raised from the event was to go to Stevenson to help her in her battle with cancer, but now those funds will go to cancer research, she said.
“My mom and I decided not to take the money,” Stevenson said. “We have not had to spend our money for my cancer treatments as we have insurance to cover that so we want the money raised to go to cancer research and children’s oncology. So the Learning to Give Class is holding this in my honor as well.”
So what is Stevenson’s prognosis?
“I’m feeling pretty good right now,” she said. “I’m going to school and seem to be getting stronger every day. I’m getting back to normal. But sometimes when I stand up, I feel I get a little dizzy.”
Stevenson is the daughter of Karolyn and Keith Stevenson. Keith is retired from Ford Motor Co. and Karolyn works as a paraprofessional at SSC.
“As far as I can tell my tumor is not there,” she said. “But they are doing genetic studies, since my sister, who is 19 now, had ovarian cancer, too, when she was 16. They told us that ovarian cancer is only 1 percent of the cancers people have.”
Stevenson is still on medication that she has to continue taking for a while, but her attitude is good and she is looking forward to enjoying all of her junior year at her school.
Donations can be made to the SSC Learning to Give Class in honor of Stevenson even after the upcoming Make a Difference Day event and will be accepted by the class until Nov. 5.
