Jenny Mullins fits that phrase to a tee. Despite whatever hardships faced her during her life, the friendships Mullins formed over those 38 years have staid strong, even after her death to bladder cancer on June 9.
A single mother of a 4-year-old girl, Josie, the Lexington resident struggled in her final months to make ends meet, leaving a stack of medical bills and her young daughter when she passed. A group of close-knit friends stepped to the plate.
Mullins friends have planned a chicken pie dinner and raffle fundraiser for Saturday, July 17, from 3 to 7 p.m. at Second Reformed Church, 330 N. Church St. in Lexington. Proceeds will go towards medical bills and Josie’s care.
“I think it’s wonderful,” said Butch Gibson, Mullins’ father. “I think if everyone had friends like she has that are willing to put their days aside and help her or someone in any way — I think it’s wonderful that people will do that.”
The dinner, which costs $7 for eat-in or take-out, includes chicken pie, beans, cole slaw, a roll and dessert. The event also will include a drop raffle, meaning that guests can buy as many tickets as they want upon entering the dinner and can then place their tickets towards whichever items they choose.
Raffle items include gift cards, a Vera Bradley bag, a Bob Timberlake print, RCR Museum passes, a weekend getaway at High Rock Lake, pillows, lamps, handmade quilts and more. All of the items — and much of the dinner supplies — were donated by contacts of Mullins’ friends.
And the group expects a good turnout. Tickets have already been selling well, and Rebecca Sink, event organizer and good friend of Mullins since age 14, hopes to serve around 800.
“I would love to fill that church and then some,” Sink said. “I have faith that it can happen.”
Sink originally planned the fundraiser as a way to pay some of Mullins’ bills and medical expenses. When the young woman was diagnosed with cancer, she lost her job and her health insurance shortly after, leaving finances a bit tight.
“It was just a tumble of events from there,” Sink said. “She did chemo, radiation, the whole nine yards, but the cancer just kept spreading.”
Mullins then found out that there wasn’t much more that the doctors could do. She was placed on life support, and died on June 9.
“I told her before she left us that the show would go on,” Sink said.
The event’s goal then took on an alternate purpose — to raise money for Josie’s care. The 4-year-old will live with her grandparents, Gibson and his wife, Judy.
“They will use anything we raise to help finalize things with Jenny that were left behind and undone, and the rest will be put towards Josie, like the education front,” Sink said.
The little girl herself has started to more fully comprehend what happened, Sink says.
“She finally understands,” she said. “Her ‘Poppy’ and I were always at the hospital, and she was always with her grandmother. Now we’re not at the hospital anymore, we’re always around. She knows her mommy’s in heaven with Jesus.”
Sink said a pediatric grief specialist has spoken with the girl’s grandparents about walking a child through grief. Though the journey has been hard, it’s been a process.
“She has her days, she has her moments where she doesn’t want to go to sleep at night and she misses her mommy,” Sink said. “We take it one day at a time.”
And while the fundraiser may not make Mullins’ passing any easier on family and friends, the community gathering and financial support will take a huge burden off of those left to pick up the pieces.
“We’re doing this first and foremost to help this child and make sure that she has every opportunity in life that she can have,” Sink said. “I was a single mother for a brief period. Being a single mom is hard enough as it is, and then faced with getting sick and losing your job and your health insurance, the little things the day-to-day things like your daughter wants a Barbie doll and you can’t buy it.”
Even before Mullins’ death, Sink knew the monetary assistance would do wonders to alleviate her friend’s difficulty.
“The medical bills were piling up on her, and they’re still there,” Sink said. “You’ve got to take some of the stress off someone like that. You’re fighting cancer, you shouldn’t have to cry over a stack of bills.”
Ironically, the day of the event — which just so happened to fit everyone’s schedule the best — also happens to be National Bladder Cancer Awareness Day, a fact Sink was told after she and her friends had set the date. The coincidence goes hand in hand with the event’s other purpose, to get the word out about less mainstream types of cancer.
“As with any cancer, awareness is the reason,” Sink said. “Early diagnosis makes all the difference in the world. If Jenny had been able to get diagnosed earlier, I know in my heart things would be different.”
Though the Gibsons have let Sink and her friends take care of most of the arrangements, the full meaning of what they’re doing hasn’t gone unnoticed.
“These are all friends of hers that have gotten together,” Gibson said. “They’re doing a wonderful job. I really appreciate that the girls that my daughter went to school with and was friends with are doing this in her memory. And I’m proud of them for doing it.”
Staff Writer Erin Wiltgen can be reached at 888-3576 or at newsdesk@tvilletimes.com
Post a Comment
