Neighbors raise $20,000 for Cody Dennis’ family

WASILLA — Mostly the neighbors who came together from across the Mat-Su Valley July 9 to support Cody Dennis had never met him.

Whether they slipped crumpled $20s or a stack of 10 crisp $100 bills into the donation jar, most only knew the boy’s name and that the 14-year-old is fighting cancer.

So far the garage sale, bake sale and barbecue at Northern Industrial Training has raised $20,000 to help the Dennis family with expenses. Funds from the silent auction are still being collected and totaled, said Krista Gonder with Northern Industrial Training.

NIT and Arden Miller of NC Machinery in Wasilla organized the garage sale July 9 at NIT’s location on the Palmer-Wasilla Highway.

“It was an awesome event,” Gonder said.

Misty and Brian Dennis and their son Cody have been at Seattle Children’s Hospital since Dec. 13, 2010, when doctors discovered a large tumor on the boy’s leg was cancerous.

Both parents have lost their jobs as a result of their extended absences and several additional fundraisers are planned to try to help the Dennis’ keep their home, said Cody’s aunt Dottie A. Coughlin, who lives in Wasilla.

Misty said the family has already sold nearly everything it owned trying to afford to live in Washington while Cody is receiving treatment.

“It has been a struggle, and we have talked about selling our house many times, but we really want to be able to bring Cody home to his home when this battle is won,” she said.

At 5 p.m., July 9 people were still pulling in to the NIT parking lot and dropping off donations for the sale, Dottie said. And Sunday they even opened the sale for a while to try and bring in a few more dollars, Misty said.

Since they still have donations left, she said the family — and their legion of supporters — is in the process of planning a garage sale in Anchorage, though no date, time or location has been selected yet.

The entire Coughlin and Dennis families seemed overwhelmed by the kindness of their neighbors that day.

“People have been so generous. It’s just amazing,” said grandmother Jennifer Coughlin of Wasilla. “The love and support for Cody and the family is just amazing.”

Cody’s grandma Louise Delano, Brian’s mom who lives in Anchorage, said she was a Valley girl to the core that day.

“I can’t say enough good about this family and this Valley,” she said of the Crum family, which organized the event.

Grandma Louise is from New York and still carries traces of an East Coast accent and tough exterior. But she wasn’t so tough that Saturday.

She said she cried first when she saw the video of Cody walking without crutches, cried when she heard a stranger had donated $1,000 and again when a woman pressed a $500 check into a volunteer’s hand.

“I’ve cried six or seven times today, and I’m not a crier,” Grandma Louise said.

Aunt Dottie said her tears last Saturday were tears of joy, not sadness.

Mom Misty said it was even more incredible to see Cody take those first shaky steps than when he learned to walk as a baby.

“This time it meant more,” she said. “It was incredible to see him walking.”

Misty said it meant a lot to the family that Cody walked on the same day everyone was rallying for him in Alaska.

At the sale July 9, a steady stream of Valley residents stopped to offer support.

“Someone just walked up and gave me another $80,” said Chris Crum, matriarch of the Crum clan.

Joe Crum said he got involved in the effort after hearing the news about the Dennis family’s struggle.

Before Cody’s illness, Brian worked as a salesman for Airport Equipment Rental and then later for NC Machinery, Joe Crum said.

“He was the most dependable salesperson I’d ever met,” he said. “He really started to build himself a name.”

That Crum’s sons are close to Brian’s age and share similar interests also helped cement the bond between the two families, Joe Crum said.

The men are still in frequent contact by email and text, he said.

But he said it was his daughter and sons who came up with the idea to organize a fundraiser for the family. “All I did was listen and say yes.”

Son Joey Crum said the day went better than he’d hoped.

“These are tough times for everyone,” he said. “For the number of people to stop and contribute what they have is just incredible.”

NIT sent out an email blast to its 5,000-person customer list and promoted the sale on a couple of radio stations.

Grandma Louise said she’d never seen strangers go out of their way to help each other like she’s witnessed in the Valley.

“I never knew the Crums at all, and today I feel like I’ve know them all my life,” she said. “The hearts of these people are just so big.”

At first when doctors diagnosed Cody’s cancer, Misty said the plan was to remove the tumor below the knee, knock down the cancer with chemo, and then do a second surgery to remove two nodules in his lungs.

But plans changed when a CT scan in June showed the cancer was still growing, despite aggressive chemotherapy treatments.

“Last time they counted he had eight nodules,” she said June 16 by phone from Seattle. “Now there are more and they are bigger.”

That was a few days after Cody’s classmates from Houston raised $3,000 for the family through a car wash and bake sale June 11.

For now, Cody is part of a study using a drug that has worked on leukemia and on a different form of sarcoma. And if that doesn’t work, the family said they plan to try two remaining kinds of chemo the hospital has readily available to defeat Cody’s stubborn osteosarcoma.

While doctors tell Cody and his family that his odds of beating cancer are less than 10 percent, the Dennis family continues to hope, pray and do everything medically possible to beat the odds.

A note that a friend posted on their CaringBridge page some time ago continues to remind the family that all Cody needs is a 1 percent chance to win this fight.

“That has kept us moving forward with hope,” Misty said

A Cody Dennis Donation Fund is setup at Wells Fargo Bank, account No. 5535270820. People also may send cards to Brian, Misty and Cody Dennis, 7001 NE 186th Place, No. 103, Kenmore, WA 98028. Or, people may leave messages for the family online at caringbridge.org/visit/codydennis.

Contact Heather A. Resz at heather.resz@frontiersman.com or 352-2268.