MLHS Alumni donate to cancer foundation

MOSES LAKE — Members of the Moses Lake High School class of 1982 wanted to do something special to mark their 40th reunion.

“Our class has been really tight,” said Rich Victor, one of the organizers of this year’s reunion. “There’s a lot of us that are lifetime Moses Lakers and we got through kindergarten all the way up to 12th grade.”

In fact, Victor said the class is more like a family.

“A family that gets along, for the most part,” he said.

So at their big reunion soiree the last weekend of July, a three-night affair that included live music, graduates raised $1,500 for the Columbia Basin Cancer Foundation and another $500 for MLHS athletics programs.

“We had a donation jar out. People just listened to the music, had a great time having some beverages and we filled up the donation jar,” Victor said.

All of that money will go to help meet the foundation’s costs of helping people get to and from cancer treatment, said Angel Ledesma, the foundation’s executive director. Because gasoline is expensive right now, and most residents who battle cancer have to go elsewhere — such as Wenatchee or Spokane — for treatment.

“We spend $7,000 a month in gas and grocery cards for cancer clients in Grand and Adams counties,” Ledesma said. “So this will help us with our monthly budget to get those clients to treatment.”

Julie Fairbanks, who also graduated from MLHS in 1982, said the donation is important to them because so many classmates have had cancer.

“There are so many deceased who had cancer, deceased and gone through it, we realized that would probably be a good reason to donate,” she said.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.