Georgetown family collects clothes to fight cancer – News – MetroWest Daily News, Framingham, MA

The following press release was submitted to the Record Citizen:

In 2003, a few years after she was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer, a friend came to Kathie Mitchell and suggested that they start a WALK team. Wanting to give back to the medical group that had saved her life, Team Kathie Mitchell was formed, and they have been walking ever since, never missing a year.

“My oncologist, Dr. Ronald Weinger, and the North Shore Cancer Center had provided me with such great care that I wanted to raise funds to help them out,” said Mitchell.

Mitchell and her team have raised more than $345,000 over the past 16 years. This year, for the 30th anniversary of the WALK, Mitchell’s team goal is $15,000 and her personal goal is $3,000.

To help her reach these targets, she had organized several fundraisers including one at UNO’s, a scratch ticket raffle and an event at Rolly’s Tavern in Lynn, which sponsors the team by providing their team shirts. COVID-19, however, hit in March, and much of Mitchell’s fundraising plans came to an abrupt end.

The pandemic didn’t hurt one of Mitchell’s long-standing fundraisers. In fact it may have helped.

For the last few years, Mitchell has collected clothing and other textiles and arranged for a truck to pick them up. Her team then receives a check from the company based on the weight of the donation.

With everyone quarantined inside cleaning out closets, attics and basements, Mitchell had her most successful collection by far this year. Well over 1,300 bags of clothing were collected and stored at her friend and teammate Agnes Sarcia’s house in Georgetown. Sarcia, her husband, Rick, and their daughter, Dani, along with many other members of Team Kathie Mitchell were on hand when a giant box truck came to collect the bags. The team had collected so many bags, in fact, that a second truck was needed because the first couldn’t fit all of the bags that were stacked floor to ceiling.

Mitchell, who served as the WALK chairperson in 2007, is very proud of what the team has accomplished.

“Even though we are living in very unusual times, cancer doesn’t stop and neither can we,” said Mitchell. “My goal is to raise as much money as I can this year in honor of our longtime team member, Billy Smith, who passed away from cancer in December.”