Support group raises $25K to deliver hot meals to families in COVID-19 kids' cancer ward outbreak

As she finished up another round of chemotherapy last week, 12-year-old Makenna Stratton was hit with a craving: cheese pizza.

But getting her hands on a slice wouldn't be easy.

A day earlier, the cancer ward at Winnipeg's Children's Hospital had declared a COVID-19 outbreak, bringing in strict protocols that confined families to their rooms with few exceptions in an effort to protect the vulnerable patients in the CK5 unit.

Then just as Makenna and her mom, Monique Stratton, were trying to figure out how to make it happen help arrived.

Unbeknownst to Monique, a Facebook post she'd made expressing frustration about the outbreak had caught the eye of Naomi Fehr, the board chair of the Manitoba-based Candlelighters Childhood Cancer Support Group.

"It kind of brought me to my knees," said Fehr, whose nine-year-old son, Joshua, died of cancer in 2012.

"I remember all too well what that was like. And I can't even imagine having to deal with another threat on top of cancer."

Fehr said the volunteer organization had decided to make sure that at the very least, every family in the children's cancer ward would get a hot dinner delivered to them while stuck in lockdown.

And that night's meal just so happened to be pizza.

But those first slices were just the beginning once Fehr posted about it herself, the effort spread far and wide, with people sending her messages asking if they could pitch in, too.

By Sunday afternoon, she said they'd raised over $25,000.

"In a world where we have so much division right now, I think it's so important to see that there is also a lot of good," Fehr said.

If you ask Makenna, the pizzas were pretty good but it was the thought behind them that really hit her.

"Just to know that you have a whole bunch of people behind you is pretty cool," she said.

And for families in the CK5 unit, what on its face is just a simple dinner feels like so much more, Monique said.

"For any of the parents who are going through any kind of hardships like this with your children, it's the last thing you need to worry about," she said.

"It's been absolutely remarkable. I never would have thought in my wildest dreams that a simple Facebook post for support would warrant so much kindness especially from strangers."

It's just another example of the support network she said has been crucial to her family since her daughter was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, a rare childhood cancer, in October.

"I call it our village. Our village is what's holding us together right now, and we're so grateful for that," she said.

"We couldn't do this by ourselves, we really couldn't."

For now, families in CK5 will stay in quarantine for at least another week, Monique said. And so far, she and her daughter have both avoided the virus during the outbreak, which the province reported publicly on Friday.

But if COVID-19 tests all come back negative next Monday, they could be allowed to leave their room as Makenna keeps working to recover from her third cycle of five scheduled rounds of chemotherapy.

If all goes according to plan, she could be back at home with her beloved rescue dog, Willy, sometime next month, Monique said and she's not quite sure who will be more excited to see who.

"She's really looking forward to seeing him," she said.

"[And] he can smell her on us, you know, when we come and go. He goes bonkers when we bring her laundry home. He's like, 'Where did you put her? When is she coming home?'"