M
By the time Labor Day weekend rolled around, about 150 of them had signed up to run in the Bold for Gold 5K road race, which she organized with guidance from her senior project mentor, middle school English teacher Katie Flint. Their entry fees would go to the Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Clinic at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center’s Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth (CHaD), where Brandon started undergoing treatments for leukemia almost two years ago.
Then on race day itself, 100 more showed up, bringing the total take to $7,000, a total that the youth development organization Positive Tracks then pledged to match.
“My goal was 100 participants,” Brandon said during a telephone interview last week. “I hadn’t thought about how much money I’d raise. I’d have been happy with $2,000.
“Seven thousand was amazing.”
Brandon has been amazing teachers and classmates as well as herself since, and even before, her diagnosis with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in December 2014.
“Renee was in my eighth-grade English class,” Flint recalled during an exchange of emails last week. “She was a diligent student who worked hard to understand the material. She was respectful and kind, and she unfailingly thanked those who helped her along the way. I see those same qualities in Renee today; however, they are more mature and developed. Renee has struggled more than a young woman should at her age, yet she has translated her experience into wisdom — a wisdom that many get later in life.”
Brandon started learning the hard way about life, and wondering how long she’d live to develop that wisdom, early in her sophomore year. Midway through the Sunapee varsity volleyball team’s season in the fall of 2014, she developed a pain in her knee that led to an operation and then a series of blood tests that eventually revealed her leukemia
During the ensuing 20 months of intensive treatment, during which her hair fell out and she attended school off and on, Brandon got a crash course in the different kinds of leukemia.
“I definitely learned about what goes on,” said Brandon, who is now on a maintenance regimen that allows her to do more school activities. “More than anyone my age should know.”
While organizing the road race, Brandon put those lessons to work. To raise awareness of the multiple kinds of childhood cancers and leukemia, she ordered race T-shirts in five different colors: white for bone cancer, gray for brain cancer, orange for leukemia, lime for lymphoma and purple for retinal blastoma.
“Some of the people who registered for the race chose a particular color because they knew someone who’d had that kind of cancer,” Brandon said. “Some people just picked a color they liked. I also set up an information booth at the starting line with information about each form.”
In the run-up to the race, Brandon kept impressing her mentor.
“During our planning meetings, she never seemed overwhelmed with the challenge,” Flint said. “Every suggestion I made, she investigated and followed up on. Senior project can be a very overwhelming experience for most seniors. However, Renee has faced down even bigger challenges.”
Brandon welcomed the idea of supporting the people who helped her through her treatment.
“It didn’t feel like it was something I had to do for senior project,” Brandon said. “I was doing it because I wanted to. I know I wanted to give back some how, to my community or the clinic.”
Other patients who emerged from CHaD have given back in a number of ways over the years. Over the last 10 years, Thetford Academy graduate Joanna Grossman Miller has raised more than $25,000 in pledges while running in either the CHaD half marathon or the simultaneous Ripcord 5K each October, as one of a growing number of CHaD “ambassadors.”
CHaD has been working since 2009 with the Hanover-based Positive Tracks program, which Nini Meyer of Lyme and her son Jasper founded while organizing a fun run alongside the half-marathon, with the goal of helping Jasper’s friend Cameron Marshall of Lyme, a leukemia patient. CHaD’s event planners called Positive Tracks’ attention to Brandon’s effort.
“We apply for a grant from Positive Tracks each year,” Tom Gauthier, CHaD’s coordinator of community relations, wrote in an email last week, “to not only match youth fundraising, for ages 23 and under, up to a certain amount, but to … help teach them about philanthropy and how to give back to their communities and causes they are passionate about.”
Brandon hopes that her peers at Sunapee High are learning these and other lessons.
“To see a classmate go through something like this would change my perspective,” Brandon said. “Here’s someone going through a situation, but they chose to do something good with what they have.”
The response impressed, but didn’t surprise, Katie Flint.
“We got to ride through the race on a golf cart,” Flint recalled in her email. “That was really amazing, to see how many people were there to support Renee.”
To learn about hosting athletic events for CHaD, visit chadkids.org. For more information about winning matching funds for youth-led charity events, visit positivetracks.org.
The Hartford Area Career and Technology Center recently named students from eight Upper Valley high schools as the outstanding performers in their respective programs during the first quarter at the regional school.
Outstanding students, by school, follow:
Windsor — Lauren Davis, level-II business administration; Tate Hurd, level-I business administration; Sierra Adams, career and technology applications; Kayce Herschel, level-II human services.
Woodstock Union High School — Taylor Tolar, Level-II allied medical services; Tylor Nass, level-I automotive technology; Olivia Johannensen, level-I human services; Andrew Pierce, level-I industrial mechanics and welding; Olivia Newcity, level-I natural resources.
South Royalton School — Dario Spinella, level-I allied medical services; Maegan Carbino, level-II cosmetology.
Mascoma Valley Regional High School — Aiden Poirer, level-II automotive technology; Tyler Tremblay, level-I collision repair and refinishing; Jacob Washer, level-II computer technology applications; Mandie Savard, level-I design, illustration and media arts; Spencer Stebbins, morning STEM (science, technology, engineering and math); Bria Dow, level-I cosmetology.
Hanover High School — Ezra Slayton, level-II building trades.
Hartford High School — Cooper Clay, level-I building trades; Jordyn Pallmerine, cooperative education; Dylan Louis, level-II collision repair and refinishing; Zachary Moote, level-I computer technology applications; Nick Cameron, career technology explorations; Justin Bailey, level-I culinary arts; Omega Haehnel, level-II design, illustration and media arts; Ileana Sirois, afternoon STEM; Corey Ouellette, level-II natural resources.
Lebanon High School — Brandon Terrell, level-II culinary arts.
Thetford Academy — Cordell Benjamin, level-II industrial mechanics and welding.
The Grantham School District will memorialize former school board member Gale Schmidt on Friday afternoon, with a ceremony dedicating the Grantham Village School’s new outdoor classroom in her name.
During her tenure on the school board, Schmidt, who died at age 69 in 2014, championed the use of the outdoors to teach science to elementary students. Friday’s celebration starts at 2 in the school gym, and will move outdoors for a ribbon cutting and tour of the classroom.
Woodsville High School students Denny Ruprecht and Vajl Adamkowski recently planted a crabapple tree at Bedell Bridge State Park in Haverhill, as part of the beautification work that the high school’s G. Hampton McGaw Chapter of the National Honor Society has been performing at the park for several years. Green Thumb of North Haverhill donated the tree.
The Forte International Exchange Association is looking for a Hanover-area family to host a German student for the rest of the 2016-2017 school year at Hanover High School. According to Ginger Smith, community representative for the association, the boy enjoys soccer and skiing, has his own spending money and insurance coverage, helps with chores and participates in family and school activities. To learn more, call Ginger Smith at 603-397-2494 or email grandmagingerhosting@comcast.net. For more information about the Forte exchange program, visit forteexchange.org.
Thetford Academy’s drama department performs Rumors, the Neil Simon farce about the confusion erupting after a deputy mayor of New York wounds himself with a gunshot during a party celebrating his 10th wedding anniversary. The show goes on at the academy’s Martha J. Rich Theater at 7 on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, under the direction of Ray Chapin, who advises that the play “contains strong language and adult situations that are not appropriate for younger audiences.” Admission is $5 at the door.
David Corriveau can be reached at dcorriveau@vnews.com and at 603-727-3304. Education news and announcements also can be sent to schoolnotes@vnews.com.