Fundraiser held at Fort Ham for local student battling rare disease
On Friday night, September 21, the community club at Fort Hamilton lit up with food, drinks, a casino night, and –most important of all — hope, as the Fanconi Anemia Research Foundation (FARF) and the Fort Hamilton Spouses Foundation co-hosted an event in honor of Emily Mitchell, a 10-year-old girl battling Fanconi Anemia.
Emily — who lives on the Army base with her family — was just a month old when she was diagnosed with FA, “a rare, inherited blood disorder that leads to bone marrow failure,” according to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
The goal of the event — dubbed “Bet on a Cure for Emily” — was to raise money for the foundation, which has been a wellspring of information and support for the Mitchell family, and which not only educated them about the disease but also connected them to Camp Sunshine in Maine, where Emily, a student at P.S. 264 in Bay Ridge, was able to meet other children who also had the disease as well as adults who have the disease, which gave her a glimmer of hope.