As many of you may be aware, Shelly’s daughter Chantal passed away at age 20 in October of 2008 after a two and a half year battle
with brain cancer. Chantal’s battle began in May of 2006 when she was first diagnosed. At that time, Shelly took a leave
of absence from work to care for her. It was by depleting the family’s savings and RRSP’s as well as with the help of family
and friends that Shelly and her family made it through that first stretch until Chantal’s cancer went into remission in 2007. However
in January of 2008, her cancer came back but she was able to keep it in check relatively well for several months until it began to
really take hold severely later that June. During the last five months of Chantal’s life, she required full time assistance
as well as an intense regimen of chemotherapy. Shelly wanted and needed to be with her every step of the way. This meant
Shelly had to leave her job and thus her family’s income was cut in nearly half. In the meantime, the type of chemo Chantal
required was not covered by any medical plan, private or public. This amounted to thousands of dollars every month for which
Chantal’s family could not afford.
With the unimaginable support of family, friends, co-workers, and total strangers, Chantal’s
family were given the financial support needed to cover ALL the costs of her treatments, any special assistive devices she required,
as well as enough funds to replace Shelly’s income while she was off work so that the bills could be paid and they could keep food
on the table.
The type of fundraising done was ongoing bottle drives, dances, silent auctions, as well as thousands of dollars
in private donations. It was very overwhelming and the Dubois family is forever grateful.
This is the reason the Dubois
family has set up a fund in Chantal’s memory. This fund will be used to help other families who may go through similar circumstances
when a child has cancer and a parent needs to be with them through their fight. The fund has already helped others. To
help maintain the fund, Shelly is setting aside three dollars from the sale of every CD and forty percent of download revenues for
the fund.
Although a huge amount of the financial support we received was from the wonderful people of the Peace
Country in northern
On behalf of the Dubois Family, Shelly, Jean and Aleida, we thank you all in advance for your kind generosity. We hope this fund can help make a difference to families that need it.