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Tully rallied for beloved neighbor; Girls Lacrosse organized charity game
Topic Started: Tuesday May 27 2008, 04:32 PM (173 Views)
PSUSyr5
The Board Idiot

This is my high school.

From syracuse.com:
Quote:
 
Three weeks ago, an idea was born in the parking lot of Tully Elementary School.

After dropping his daughter off, Coach Dennis Kennedy heard from a friend about another lacrosse team that raised money for cancer research.

The Tully girls' lacrosse team he coached should do that, too. Organizing a charity game would bring the kids together.

They all knew who Patty Bailey was - she was Taylor and Jenna's mom. But no one knew she was sick, dying from the same disease they were raising money to fight.

Linda Casey, Bailey's older sister, said she didn't want anyone to know she was sick. "She didn't want people to look at her like she was going to die," Casey said. "She said, 'Now I have a big C in the middle of my forehead.' "

On May 13, Coach Kennedy was at the Tully High School field with Ron Birdsall, the school's head of buildings and grounds. Birdsall was lacing the green grass with a giant pink ribbon. It was big enough to hold two families in the center and 16 girls on each side.

Patty Bailey died at 2:30 a.m. Monday in her home. It was only after she made everyone promise they would wear pink and baby blue to her funeral, no black. They were all there - the dogs, the kids, the cats, the sisters, the brothers, the nieces, nephews and her mother.

It seemed her fight was over.

Later Monday morning, Christopher Keevil was at the high school showing around the programs for the game, making sure the names were right. That's when he found out Patty Bailey had died. Keevil, who lives on the same street as Patty, knew she had cancer two years ago but didn't know she was sick again.

Everything changed. He would make new programs. The woman who chose to fight so privately would be honored publicly for her battle. Keevil, owner of The Copy Centers in Syracuse, made another 500 programs later that morning. The front says, "In Loving Memory of Pat Bailey." On the back, a donation is listed in her memory from her daughter Jenna's fifth-grade class.

The girls on the lacrosse team had dressed in the morning for the game. They put pink ribbons in their hair, wore the pink jerseys and sprayed pink paint in each other's hair. By late morning, their pink took on new meaning as word trickled out.

At 6:45, everyone lined up on the pink ribbon: 16 girls from the Tully lacrosse team, 16 girls from Onondaga. In the middle were the Bailey family and the Baldwin family.

First there was the national anthem. Then the superintendent, Kraig Pritts, announced that the game was dedicated to Patty Bailey, and called for a moment of silence. He could hear both teams weeping. Then he handed the microphone to Mark, Patty's husband.

Mark told the crowd how hard his wife fought, and how touched she would be to know that they were still fighting. Then he handed the microphone to Patty's sister, Linda Casey, who told of how Patty, a graphic designer, created the shirts used locally by the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. She said they asked her before her diagnosis to chair the race, she said she couldn't because she hadn't "walked the walk." It had to be chaired by someone who had cancer. Patty Bailey found out about her disease the following year.

Then Beth Baldwin announced that the Carol M. Baldwin Breast Cancer Research Fund of CNY would donate $50,000 to cancer research in Patty Bailey's name.

More than 500 people came to that game. They usually draw a crowd of 40. Every piece of chicken, pizza and candy sold. And every cent went to cancer research. The school raised more than $4,000.

In that single day, Patty Bailey's fight became everybody's fight.


Full article

Photo gallery from the game
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