Friends keep fighting for children with cancer

A teacher named her daughter after a former first grade student who shined in her classroom.

“She was a sparkle of light, even before she got sick,” said April Cameron, about her Fort Mill student Jenna Witherspoon.

Jenna who ignited an outpouring of support in Fort Mill after she was diagnosed with brain cancer died in 2006 at age 12.

In 2007, Cameron added a daughter, Jenna, to the family. Cameron stopped teaching four years earlier with the birth of her son, Lance. Now, Jenna Cameron attends Gaston Christian School, but she started at Crowders Creek Elementary School.

While at Crowders Creek, she meet Kayla Melendez in 2012.

“They were in kindergarten together,” April Cameron said. “They were always buddies on field trips.”

The following year, in first grade, Kayla was diagnosed with brain cancer. The Lake Wylie girl died in January 2014 at age 7. She, too, drew wide support from her community. Entire schools wore matching outfits. Businesses donated money. A 5K in her honor drew more people.

After meeting these two girls, the Cameron family are doing helping raise money for cancer research.

“In the Bible, Jesus says when we see someone who’s sick, we are supposed to help them and pray for them,” Jenna Cameron said. “Everybody can help in different ways, but we can all do something.”

Recently, Jenna Cameron went to Great Clips in Lake Wylie to donate her hair to Wigs for Kids, an organization providing wigs for children with cancer. She also plans to participate in a 5K run in Fort Mill in memory of her late friend Kayla.

“When we run or donate money it gives them the supplies they need and helps them to feel better,” Jenna Cameron said. “I would like to see more people donate their hair instead of throwing it away and giving more money for research to cure kids’ cancer.”

The second annual Cookies for Kids’ Cancer 5K begins at 8 a.m. Sept. 12 at Walter Elisha Park in Fort Mill. Organizer Melanie Kauffman’s son, Daniel, was diagnosed with leukemia at age 2. Now a first-grader, Daniel has been off treatment for 17 months.

“We didn’t know how underfunded it was,” she said. “We didn’t realize how prevalent it actually is. All the awareness, all the money, it is making a difference.”

Tricia Witherspoon is seeing the difference in gold ribbons and on social media for child cancer awareness month each September.

“Eleven years ago, there was none of this,” said the late Jenna Witherspoon’s mother. “Nothing. People just didn’t know about kids with cancer.”

From sharing a name to thinking of the child who meant so much to so many means a lot to the families.

“It gives me warm and fuzzies that people still remember her,” Tricia Witherspoon said. “The greatest thing anybody can do is remember your child.”

Jenna Witherspoon was treated in a building beside where Levine Children’s Hospital now stands. The outpouring after her death led to $50,000 raised for the new hospital and room named for her on the 11th floor oncology unit. An office manager now in a neonatal section at Levine, Tricia Witherspoon doesn’t have to go up there for an outlook she believes gets better by the day.

“You can see the blessings,” she said. “There are blessings out there.”

This story was originally published September 4, 2015 at 1:07 PM with the headline "Friends keep fighting for children with cancer."