10-year-old Taylor Devol is too young to remember much about her grandmother's fight against lymphoma, except the fun she had trying on Grandma's wigs.
The Holland girl wasn't even born yet when her father, who is now a 25-year cancer survivor, was given a diagnosis of Hodgkin's lymphoma.
But that hasn't stopped her from taking up the cause.
Taylor spent all summer cleaning out her toy box and collecting used games and playthings from friends for a charity sale to benefit the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.
But we're not talking about your average garage sale. Think bigger -- much bigger.
Taylor Devol collects toys
Taylor passed out flyers at church to recruit help. She rode her bike down the street with friends and her 7-year-old brother, Nate, to knock on neighbors' doors seeking donations.
"I said, 'I would like you to help. If you need help cleaning your garage or house I would help you with that,'-- " Taylor said of her campaign to gather puzzles, games, toys, and baby gear for the charity.
Teachers at the Springfield Local School District's Holland Elementary -- where she is a student and her dad is principal -- decided to help. Then, the other nurses her mom works with at Toledo Children's Hospital pitched in.
Donations now fill the Devol family's dining room table, garage, and Grandma's garage. And the donations just keep coming.
The toys will be offered for sale at the Holland Community Building, 940 Clarion Ave., on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
It was important to Taylor that the donated toys go to children whose families may not be able to afford new ones, so there won't be any price tags at her toy sale. She asks shoppers to give only what they can afford.
"Our motto is, 'Take what you need, give what you can,'-- " Taylor said.
"If they need a bike and can donate five bucks, that's fine," Taylor's grandmother, Barb Irons, said.
"Or people may need something and not have any money, and that's fine," her mom, Kelly Devol, said.
The proceeds from the sale will be donated to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society through the Toledo Children Hospital's team for the Light the Night Walk on Oct. 17 at Fifth Third Field.
Blood cancers -- including leukemia, Hodgkin's lymphoma, and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma -- represent nearly 10 percent of the 1.4 million new cancer cases expected to be diagnosed in the United States this year, according to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.
These cancers originate in the bone marrow or lymphatic tissues.
The numbers once included Taylor's dad, Gary Devol.
"We were a family untouched by cancer, and it just blew up," Mrs. Irons said.
Mr. Devol was 24 when he found a lump on his neck that turned out to be Hodgkin's lymphoma.
"My mom was a nurse," Mr. Devol said. "She didn't freak, but she told me to get to the doctor."
After a surgery that was risky at the time, followed by radiation treatment, Mr. Devol was cancer-free. That was 15 years before Taylor was born, but she seems to understand the gravity of such a diagnosis.
"If he hadn't gotten better, I wouldn't be here," Taylor said.
In 2002, her grandmother was diagnosed with Stage 4 lymphoma in her aorta and hips. She leaned on the family -- especially her son-in-law and fellow cancer survivor -- for support through chemotherapy treatments that took her hair, but not her sense of humor.
"I remember, we took turns putting her wig on and just laughed ourselves silly," Mr. Devol said.
Mrs. Irons laughed it off when one of her other small grandchildren told her that her head was "naked."
"That helped me though," she said. " I think that's exactly what I needed."
"She used to always wear hats," Taylor said. "I remember the day she took it off and said, 'I'm not wearing these anymore because people don't really care what you look like.'"
Taylor's mom, Mrs. Devol, said she wasn't surprised when her daughter decided to do something to help the cause, because she always seemed interested in the charity projects at school or church.
But Taylor was fascinated when Hannah Turner, the Perrysburg girl who was 6 when she inspired the philanthropy Hannah's Socks, appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show in May.
"She just thought that it was so neat that it was a little girl that did that. Just to think that it doesn't have to be an adult to do things like this," Mrs. Devol said. "But we never expected it to be like this."
Contact Bridget Tharp at:
btharp@theblade.com
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