Local charity helps cancer patients travel for care

With the medical costs that come with treating cancer, those affected and their families can use all the help they can get to pay for all that is associated with combating that disease.

Pahrump non-profit, Walk the Rock, holds various fundraisers throughout the year, including their annual fun walk at the Jim Butler Days celebration in Tonopah, that just took place last week, which raises money that is donated to cancer patients hailing from Nye and Esmeralda counties.

“We provide prepaid gas cards and sometimes a (hotel) room for cancer patients that are traveling for treatment,” said Connie Sheldon, director of Walk the Rock. “They have to travel from Nye County or Esmeralda County. We provide aid for those folks.”

This year’s event took in a record $16,000, which is raised by selling sponsor space, $125 for the front, $75 for the back of the T-shirts the event participants wear, and through a raffle held after the walk, featuring various prizes from businesses in the area.

The higher than usual amount this year can be attributed from a large donation from a pair of athletic teams at the high school.

“We got a very special donation from the girls volleyball and basketball teams at Pahrump Valley High School,” Sheldon said. “They gave us $3,200.”

Sheldon is under the impression the teams raised the funds through selling T-shirts, a bake sale and car washes.

There is a limit of $300 of monetary help per person, per year, that Walk the Rock distributes. That number rose this year from last year’s cap of $200, due to the cost of gas rising.

The charity was started by Sheldon’s twin sister, over a decade ago, who since lost her own battle with the disease.

“This fund was started by my identical twin sister, Billie D. Gray, who started this 11 years ago … and she passed away in 2010 from breast cancer,” she said. “So we carry this on in her name.”

Sheldon is a breast cancer survivor herself, but her husband and father both also passed away from cancer, making the services she and the charity do that much more meaningful to her and her team.

With travel costs not taken care of by traditional medical coverage, those who might not otherwise be able to afford to leave town for care are able to do so.

“The nice thing is, is that these are the things that the insurance don’t pay for,” Sheldon said. “It stays in Nye and Esmeralda County.”

Those that do receive aid are grateful of the charity’s service, as the costs associated with the disease rack up fairly quickly.

“They’re grateful,” Sheldon said. “If you have radiation you have to go to town every day. People can’t thank us enough. They say, ‘I didn’t know what I was going to do. I didn’t know how I was going to get there.’

“When you get cancer, and I’ve had cancer, you just don’t realize what that costs.”

With most people affected by the disease one way or another, Sheldon explained that if you don’t someone with cancer now, odds are you will in the future.

“It’s not anymore, in most of our cases, it’s not if, but when, somebody you know, or some family member is going to have it.”