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Local family hosts garage sale to support brain tumour research in memory of late daughter

May 11, 2023   ·   0 Comments

By Brian Lockhart

When Orangeville residents Nichola and Dave Windrim lost their daughter, eight-year-old Myah, to brain cancer in 2015, they decided to continue her legacy by contributing to research through various means.

On Saturday, May 6, they held a garage sale at their home on Janes Arnott Crescent in Orangeville. The sale was so large it spilled over to the neighbouring driveways, as neighbours allowed use of their properties to accommodate the sale.

The Windrims, known as the Myah’s Wings team, support the Meagan Bebenek Foundation – a charity that raises critical funds and awareness for pediatric brain tumour research. The Foundation holds an annual walk in Toronto called Meagan’s Hug.

The walk starts at Fort York and is about 5km, ending at SickKids Hospital.

“Our daughter passed away from brain cancer in 2015,” Nichola explained. “She was diagnosed in 2011 with inoperable, basically an untreatable brain tumour. She was given nine months to live, but by some miracle, we got through a good three and a half years of celebrating every moment and having the time of our lives together. About a year before Myah passed, we found the Meagan’s Walk, and we decided to put a team together and we got to walk it with Myah and a bunch of friends. She passed away that winter, and the next year we had an enormous team of people come out just to remember Myah and walk with us.”

Over the course of fundraising, they have raised more than $115,000 for the Meagan Bebenek Foundation.

“We do a garage sale every year, and we’ve done different events throughout the years,” Nichola explained. “We started in 2014. The Foundation funds paediatric brain cancer research. Paediatric cancer, as a whole, is severely underfunded. Only about four per cent of the funds raised for any cancer research goes to paediatric cancer. The research they do for adult cancers, and treatments, are not applicable for children.”

While there is still a long way to go, research on the brain cancer that took Myah’s life, Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma, has produced new methods of fighting the disease in just the past few years.

However, it takes funding to continue the research for new treatment methods. 

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