Donating wings to local cancer patients

Susan Taylor of Bigfork sat just inside the main entrance to Harvest Foods on Jan. 20 gathering donations to Wings, a charity organization that helps cancer patients with expenses not covered by insurance such as travel, food and housing as they receive treatment.

“Wings helped me when I had cancer treatments in 2000, they bought me a plane ticket back from Seattle,” Taylor said.

Taylor has helped raise funds for Wings since 2000, and Wings has been helping Flathead County cancer patients for 16 years.

“What gets me is the kids with cancer, they have to travel a lot,” Taylor said. “There's so much cancer around, you just have no idea. I just help, it's the community that does it, not me.”

Taylor estimated $400 had been donated as of Friday afternoon just in Bigfork, and noted one person who wrote a check for $100.

“Pretty good for a small town,” Taylor said. “ 100 percent of the money goes to the patients, that's what I love about it.”

As Taylor asked customers for donations, several shared their stories on how Wings has helped them, their family and their friends.

“It's a fabulous thing, it really is, you really don't understand this until it hits home,” Ray Fortuna said. Fortuna's ten-year-old granddaughter, Ember, is currently on life support for anaplastic large cell lymphoma.

“The real sad thing is the insurance companies cut them off (Ray's son and daughter-in-law),” Fortuna said. “Ember is only 10, how can you say she has a preexisting condition when she's never been sick?”

It costs $87,000 a day for Ember's treatment, according to Fortuna.

“I would swap for Ember's life right now, I've had my life and I enjoyed my life,” Fortuna said.

This is Wings main fundraiser for the year and the funds are distributed through Kalispell Regional Hospital.

“It's very low key, you apply and they give you funds,” Taylor said.

Wings volunteer and five-time cancer survivor Wendy Maechtly was participating in the Wings radiothon in Kalispell as Taylor helped raise funds in Bigfork on Jan. 20.

“We started the radiothon yesterday morning at the ski house and it's been a good turn out so far,” Maechtly said. “Last I knew, we were at $30,000.”

Wings has given out $1,415,000 since 1996 and gave out $189,884 just last year to 161 families in need.

“It is a great organization, they helped my family out when my son had leukemia from 1995 to 2002,” James Luke of Bigfork said. “He had a bone marrow transplant and is a healthy 19-year-old now.”

Donations are accepted all year and can be sent to PO Box 7852, Kalispell, 59904.