BY KEITH LACEY
Amber Woods is the kind of person who makes other people forget their troubles.
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Holiday Inn staff Shirley Cardinal, Noel Samuels and Mary Hicks-Ulrich are planning the Sleigh Ride With Santa fundraiser this Sunday for Amber Woods. |
The 14-year-old suffers from scleroderma, a potentially fatal disease where her immune system is constantly under attack. She?s been living with the disease for half her young life.
She has made a huge impression on the staff at the ?new? Holiday Inn (originally known as the Sheraton Caswell Hotel). They have decided to give the money raised at their Sleigh Ride with Santa event this Sunday to Amber and her mother.
Woods is scheduled to undergo experimental stem cell transplant surgery early in the new year. The money will help her family pay for expenses related to her recovery.
This is the second year the hotel staff have made Amber their beneficiary.
?We normally help a different child every year, but when we found out Amber was going for this experimental treatment, we knew we had to help
her again,? said Shirley Cardinal, desk service co-ordinator at the Holiday Inn and event organizer.
?Amber and her mother have become very close with everyone here at the hotel. She?s a truly remarkable young girl and everyone is really excited
about Sunday?s event.?
Last year?s event raised thousands of dollars. The money went toward purchasing Christmas gifts, a bed, winter jacket and groceries. It also paid for three trips for Woods and her mother to visit Toronto?s Hospital for Sick Children.
?We want everyone to come out and have a great time. ?No one has to donate anything, but those who want to, will be able to,? said Cardinal.
Amber?s mother Cathy said she can?t believe the generosity of the staff at the Holiday Inn and people from the community at large.
?The group at the hotel who are putting this all together are really wonderful people,? she said. ?What they did for us last year was just tremendous. I honestly can?t believe they?re doing it again. It?s just wonderful.?
Although Amber is not feeling well because of the side effects of medication and treatment, she will be in attendance Sunday, said Cathy.
The assistance provided by this event is much-needed and very much appreciated, Cathy said.
?We have to go to Toronto every four months and she will be in hospital in Toronto for at least two full months following the stem cell surgery,? she
said.
Amber said she has mixed feelings about her upcoming surgery.
?I?m excited because I know if things go well I can go back to school and get to see my friends again,? she said. ?But I?m also a little bit scared
because I know it?s going to make me really sick again.?
When asked if she ever gets mad at being so sick for so many years of her young life, Amber answers philosophically and with a wisdom far beyond her years.
?I sometimes wonder why really innocent people get these terrible diseases, but I?ve spent a lot of time at the cancer centre and Sick Kids in Toronto and I?ve seen a lot of kids who are a lot sicker than I am,? she said.
Amber and Cathy drop by the hotel almost every time they visit the cancer centre. Hotel staff treat them to a meal.
?They have both become very close with our restaurant staff and the front desk staff,? Cardinal said.
On top of the Christmas fundraiser, hotel staff participated in a bowl-a-thon earlier this year so Amber could purchase a laptop computer as she?s
been too ill to attend high school much of the time, said Cardinal.
Sunday?s event begins at 1 pm and continues until 4 pm in the parking lot of the Holiday Inn on Regent Street near the Four Corners.
People who can?t attend the sleigh ride can make a donation to Amber?s fund at the hotel any time over the holiday season.
