Throughout Molly Dunville’s life and countless visits to the hospital to undergo treatment, the Dunville family received much support from the community in a wide variety of ways. “From day one, we had an endless amount of support and we always felt that if we needed anything, we had a lot of options. Even things like bringing us meals helps more than people even realized,” Ian Dunville stated.
That support continued following Molly’s passing with a candlelight vigil being held outside on the street. Because Molly passed away in April, those that attended the vigil maintained physical distancing. “We didn’t get to have a funeral because of COVID-19, so there wasn’t a way for some people around us that loved Molly to get that closure. There were a lot of people mourning, so it was nice to have a little closure through the beautiful vigil that was held. We are very grateful to live in Martensville, and despite it being a bigger city, we still felt that small town support. It felt like a lot of people knew Molly’s story and wanted to help us and we are very grateful for that,” Kristin Dunville said.
During Molly’s fight with cancer, the Dunville family became familiar with the group ‘Small But Mighty SK’, which is a group of pediatric oncology families that are looking to spread awareness of childhood cancers in Saskatchewan communities. The group holds a number of fundraisers to help raise money to go towards Childhood Cancer Canada.
One of these fundraisers is the ‘Silver for Gold’ fundraiser where they collect pop can tabs to help raise funds to help fight childhood cancer in our country. Small But Mighty SK will be collecting tabs throughout the summer and then presenting the total in September for Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. “It is amazing how you can get in a habit of collecting them and the fact that you can make a difference by doing something so simple is incredible. By doing this, you can help fund new or better treatment options for kids with cancer,” Kristin noted.
According to the Canadian Cancer Research Alliance, only 5% of all cancer research funding in Canada goes towards childhood cancer. Ian Dunville explained that in Molly’s case, when she was first diagnosed at 11 months old, she was approximately a month away from dying; however, the treatment that they were able to get for her gave her three more years of life with her family, proving just how important treatment can be.
Another way to help honour young Molly is to donate to the fund created in her name at the Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital Foundation to help provide entertainment options for the children undergoing treatment with colouring books, toys, crafts and more. “While there, many children spend hours on treatment and for them to have options in place to help add a little joy to an otherwise not so great situation is huge. These kids are also immunocompromised, so the items can’t be shared among each other, so we thought this would be a nice way to help out and give back a little in Molly’s name,” Kristin added.
For more information on how you can donate your pop can tabs, visit ‘Small But Mighty SK’ on Facebook. In Martensville, Clearcut Coffeehouse is a drop-off location for pop can tabs for this organization as well.
To find out more about how you can help fund entertainment options for children at the Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital Foundation, visit https://pattisonchildrens.ca/.
