Wings Week starts May 3
by Kootenai Valley Record
April 29, 2008
The 12th annual Wings Week fundraiser for Wings Regional Cancer Support starts Saturday, May 3, with a Cinco de Mayo Mexican buffet dinner at the Yaak River Tavern.
The dinner starts at 6 p.m. with tickets priced at $10 per person. There will be raffles and an auction starting at 7:30.
Benefit bowling tournaments are scheduled for Tuesday, May 6, at Lincoln Lanes in Libby and Troy. The no-tap tournaments are for four-person teams. For more information on the Libby tournament, call Peggy Craver at 406-293-7842; for Troy, call 406-295-5024.
Wednesday, May 7, is Dollar Day, when volunteer “Wings Walkers” will canvass neighborhoods seeking donations. The Wings Clowns will be out and about in downtown Libby throughout the day. Walkers will meet at 5 p.m. at the fire hall in Libby and at the park in Troy. For more information on the Libby walk, call Connie Wood in Libby at 406-293-6228 (work) or 406-293-4380 (home). For information on the Troy walk, call Judy Orr at 406-295-4536 or 406-295-4773.
The week will wrap up on Saturday, May 10, with the second annual Wings Youth Trap Shoot at the Yaak Rod and Gun Club and the second annual Wings Spaghetti Feed at the Elks Lodge in Libby. The trap shoot starts at noon and is open to shooters ages 11 to 15. For more information, call Keith Hagerty at 406-295-5080.
The spaghetti feed, featuring Jon Dunham’s special homemade sauce, starts with social hour at 5:30; dinner follows at 6:30. There will also be a silent auction. Tickets are $8 and are available at the Elks Lodge, Headlines, Farmers Union Insurance and at the door.
Wings was founded in 1995 by several women from Libby and Kalispell who had gone through cancer treatment themselves and saw the need for an organization that could help others in northwest Montana deal with costs not covered by insurance, such as gas, food and lodging associated with traveling for chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Founding members included Connie Wood and the late Kathy Rowland, who was a respiratory therapist at St. John’s Lutheran Hospital. The chemotherapy room at St. John’s is named in Rowland’s memory.
When dots were connected on a map of communities from which cancer patients traveled to Kalispell for treatment, an image of wings appeared, and the organization got its name, Wood said.
Since the first Wings Week was held in 1997, the group has distributed nearly $847,000 to more than 1,500 people. Starting at around $26,000 in 1997, the amount of assistance grew to $129,584 in 2007. This year could see the total figure reach $1 million, Wood said.
“It just blows my mind when I look at that total,” she said.
One of the Wings Clowns this year will be Kathy Dunham, who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer the day after she retired from teaching at Libby High School in 2005. While the initial prognosis wasn’t good, Dunham beat the odds with help from Wings and has started giving back to the organization.
“Wings made me feel like there was some hope, and it wasn’t just the money,” Dunham said. “It was the people.”
She and her husband Jon organized the first Wings Spaghetti Feed last year and are holding the dinner again this year.
“It made me feel better that I finally started to give back,” she said.
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Editor’s Note: See the April 28, 2008 edition of the Kootenai Valley Record for the printed version of this story. The Kootenai Valley Record publishes once a week, on Monday, in Libby, Montana. They are a locally owned community newspaper, located at 403 Mineral Avenue in Libby. For in-county and out-of-county subscription information, call 406-293-2424, or e-mail kvrecord@gmail.com.
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