Yard sale fundraiser to help with continuing costs of dialysis
BY KIM LANGEN
A local mom continues to struggle with transport costs since her daughter’s kidneys failed earlier this year.
Holly Chambers needs to travel to Brandon three times a week with her sick daughter, Tasha Chambers, for dialysis treatment, and it’s more than the single-mom’s budget can bear.
But without treatment, her daughter will die.
So Tasha’s big brother, Cori Chambers, along with his wife Jen Goodyear, are throwing another yard sale fundraiser at the Ag Grounds on Saturday, October 1, from 8 a.m. until 3 p.m., and the proceeds will help Cori’s mom and little sister cope with their substantial gas bills.
“They are still removing three to four pounds of fluid from Tasha each time she has dialysis,” said Goodyear. “Basically, between her dialysis treatments her body still holds onto excess fluid and waste that her kidneys cannot remove. Having too much excess fluid can increase blood pressure, and make her heart work harder. Too much excess fluid can also build up in the lungs, and make it difficult to breathe.”
Chambers has struggled with disease since she was just a child, said her mother.
“Tasha was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes when she was seven years old,” said Tasha’s mom, Holly Chambers. “Diabetes can lead to kidney problems, and they started when she was 22 years old. During a doctor’s appointment, we were told that her kidney function was down to 16 per cent, and then it went down to 10 per cent. You need kidney dialysis when you are at eight per cent function, and right now Tasha is at four per cent. We knew it was going to happen, that her kidneys would fail, but not this quickly. It’s overwhelming sometimes, and it’s tiring.”
During the fundraiser, there will be a barbeque lunch, hosted by the Killarney-Cartwright Co-op, with hot dogs, drinks, and coffee, and lots more – including a special cowboy painting by an esteemed Manitoban portrait artist that will go to a lucky winner.
“We’ll have lots of kid’s clothes, toys, and housewares for sale, plus a beautiful painting by Timothy M. Wall of Pilot Mound, which will be raffled off at the sale,” said Goodyear. “He heard about the fundraiser, and got ahold of Cori. He said he wanted to donate this painting, ‘Open Range’, which I think is oil on canvas, in memory of his dad, who passed away from kidney disease in 1996. It’s valued at $1,800.”
Cori and his father Lloyd Giles will be looking after the lunch, said Goodyear, and there will be some baked items donated by Tasha’s aunt, Cherry Strasser.
“And we do have the building for free again, and are very grateful to the town and municipality,” she added.
A fundraiser held at the Ag Grounds building earlier this year, on June 4, raised nearly $3,000, said Cori Chambers, on a GoFundMe page set up for Tasha Chambers by her cousin. This page can be found at: https://www.gofundme.com/22mu7g4s
Tasha Chambers remains on the kidney donor list, said her mom, but the waiting time for a transplant stands at six to eight years.
In the meantime, mother and daughter travel to Brandon Hospital’s renal clinic three times a week, to clean Tasha’s blood through time-consuming dialysis. This is done through a chest portal, and takes hours.
“She started out with two-and-a-half hours, but now she’s up to four hours a day,” said Holly Chambers. “They start at 7:45 a.m. Dialysis tires her out. It’s like exercising for four hours. But afterwards she’s like the old Tasha, for a while.”
Jen Goodyear has been helping the pair with this travel herself, by driving them into the clinic twice a week.
“It’s family, and you have to pull up your big-girl panties and help,” said Goodyear. “That’s the way I was raised. If something goes wrong, you all pull together. This is Cori’s little sister, and she’s the youngest of five kids. Her mom also has adult diabetes, Type II, and I have the time to help them, so that’s what I’m doing. Not everyone knows Tasha, and that’s partly because she was in the hospital a lot when she was young, and she’s always had health problems. She has dialysis on the day of the fundraiser, but if she feels well enough to attend, she’s going to be there, and hopes to meet the painter.”
Jen Goodyear and Cori Chambers can be contacted at 204-523-8289 or Holly Chambers at 431-234-3291for more information on the fundraiser yard sale, or to arrange drop-off of items to sell at the event.
OPEN RANGE – Jen Goodyear (left) holds her one-year-old daughter Rayleigh Chambers while Rayleigh’s three-year-old sister Rainnie stands with her grandma Holly Chambers (right). The two women are holding a 40 x 30 painting by Timothy M. Wall of Pilot Mound entitled Open Range. Wall has donated his original painting to be raffled off on Saturday with all proceeds going to Tasha Chambers. Wall will be in attendance for the big yard sale fundraiser, which starts at 8 a.m. and runs till 3 p.m.
JAY STRUTH/KILLARNEY GUIDE
Tasha Chambers
TASHA CHAMBERS FUNDRAISER – Around $2,000 was raised on October 1 at the Tasha Chambers Fundraising Yard Sale at the Ag Grounds. The money was raised though raffle ticket sales for Tim Wall’s donated painting, ‘Open Range’ (artist and painting pictured), through the sale of loads of donated items, and the purchase of hot dogs and drinks. Organizer Jenn Goodyear said that it was a nice day for the event, and that a lot of people bought “boxes and boxes of stuff.”
JAY STRUTH/KILLARNEY GUIDE
BOOK SALE BUZZ – Lots of readers collected at the Beta Sigma Phi Book Sale held at the Killarney Place mall on Thursday, October 13 in search of some great books – and great deals.
Also on display was the wonderful painting, ‘Open Range,’ donated by artist Tim M. Wall to help the Chambers family cover travel expenses for Tasha Chambers’ dialysis treatments.
Tasha, who has kidney failure, has recently moved to Spruce Woods to be closer to Brandon Hospital during the winter. She needs to use a taxi service for her journeys to and from the clinic, three times a week.
Tasha’s mom Holly Chambers (pictured beside the painting) was selling $10 raffle tickets on Thursday for the painting, and the lucky winner drawn was Kathy Woods from Killarney.