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Mahopac Woman Fights Lymphoma, Walks In LLS Light The Night

PUTNAM COUNTY, N.Y. – Mahopac’s Lisa Dutra will be joined by about 40 team members made up of family and friends to raise money for blood cancer research at the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s (LLS) annual Light the Night Walk.

Lisa Dutra, center, will walk with her family, dubbed "Lisa's Warriors," at the 2014 Light the Night walk Nov. 1.

Lisa Dutra, center, will walk with her family, dubbed "Lisa's Warriors," at the 2014 Light the Night walk Nov. 1.

Photo Credit: Brian Donnelly
Cortlandt Manor residents Cythia Willkehr with her children Sebastian, 5, and Sydney, 6.

Cortlandt Manor residents Cythia Willkehr with her children Sebastian, 5, and Sydney, 6.

Photo Credit: Brian Donnelly
Benny Johnson, of Peekskill, attends the kickoff in support of Jeffrey Clark, who died of blood cancer in 2013.

Benny Johnson, of Peekskill, attends the kickoff in support of Jeffrey Clark, who died of blood cancer in 2013.

Photo Credit: Brian Donnelly

“Lisa’s Warriors” will be one of many teams walking through Playland Amusement Park in Rye on Saturday, Nov. 1 in honor of Dutra, who has been undergoing treatment for  Hodgkin's lymphoma. This will be their first Light the Night walk.

She had been in remission, but relapsed this past January. She recently had a stem cell transplant.

This week, she and her family joined about a dozen others to kick off the Light the Night fundraising effort at Manhattanville College in Purchase.

“We’ve been doing a lot of work with (LLS) recently and I think it’s great all the things they’ve been doing,” Dutra’s son, Mike, said.

Each year, people touched by blood cancer create teams to participate in the November walk and raise money to go toward research.

LLS selects a group of honorees each year. One of this year’s honorees, six-year-old Savanna DiFratta, has a team of 20-to-25 that has already raised $27,000 and plans to raise more. DiFratta’s mother, Jennifer, said they raised more than $50,000 last year in just more than one month after Savanna was diagnosed in September.

“Putting a face to the disease makes people really realize that you gotta help out and try to find better cures, and people who don’t have a cure and are still struggling,” she said.

In all, there are nearly 200 Light the Night walks across North America every fall, which raised more than $58 million in 2013 alone. The 2013 Westchester walk raised $815,000.

To form a team or to learn more, call the Connecticut Westchester Hudson Valley Chapter at 914-821-8362 or visitwww.lightthenight.org/ctwhv.

The other four Light the Night walk honorees this year are Port Chester’s William Cervinka, who has leukemia, New Rochelle’s Matthew McKay, who has lymphoma, and Peekskill’s Jeffrey Clark and Harrison’s Isabel da Silva Homem, both of whom died of blood cancer in 2013.

Before each walk, LLS holds a kickoff event. This year more than a dozen families gathered to offer support to one another and exchange fundraising ideas, not to mention play a kid-friendly game centered around LLS fun facts. 

New Rochelle’s Alexandra Cohen, who is living with chronic myelogenous leukemia, looks forward to the kick off.

"I take a lot of support, a lot of motivation to kicking into fundraising gear," she said of the kick off. 

 

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