Chelsey Watts, a teacher at Curious Apples, said all the teachers got together and agreed to do a yard sale, with proceeds going directly to Jackson’s family.
“We are trying to raise money to offset the cost that this diagnosis has put on the family,” Watts said.
To expand the reach of this event and bring in more money for the family, Watts also added a silent auction and car wash onto the yard sale.
The event will be held Saturday, March 1, from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. in Curious Apples’ parking lot (2726 Highway 87 S). The car wash portion, which will be handled by Navarre High School’s NJROTC unit and Raiders football team, will take place at 2716 Highway 87 S.
According to Watts, Jackson is sweetest and most fun little boy to have around. She said one of his favorite things is Batman, the DC superhero.
“For Halloween, he dressed as Batman,” Watts said. “If you can imagine a very small little boy coming up to you in a deep voice saying, ‘I am Batman,’ (that’s him). He has such a sense of humor. He lights up a room.”
Watts said Jackson has a natural affinity for learning and play, as well as a proclivity toward empathy.
“Anytime we are doing some type of learning activity, he is the first kid to come sit down when you’ve invited him over,” Watts said “He’s always wanted to play with his buddies. If anybody gets hurt, he is the first to ask them if they are OK. I’m sorry, thinking about him is making me tear up.”
Watts added, “It has hit some of us teachers pretty hard.”
Diagnosis
Jackson’s mom, Stacy Durward, said the family began to see that something was wrong a few months before Christmas. Her son was becoming fatigued easily and grew sicker and sicker.
“He went from really loving school, playful, wanting to be outside to putting himself to bed at night because he was so exhausted, wouldn’t play at school and just continued to get worse,” Stacy said.
Stacy said the family took him to area hospitals, including Sacred Heart, but bone marrow biopsies came back negative.
As Jackson’s condition worsened, the family was told to fly to Cincinnati to visit the city’s children’s hospital, where he was admitted right away. A different bone marrow test confirmed what no parent wants to hear: your child has cancer.
The family arrived in Ohio Jan. 4 and heard the diagnosis Jan. 10. According to Stacy, Jackson has Juvenile Myelomonocytic Leukemia (JMML), a rare type of blood cancer. It is mostly diagnosed in infants and children up to age four.
“They are telling us that we are looking at being here a year,” Stacy said.
Jackson is set to begin treatments soon. He will go through 28-day chemotherapy cycles followed by biopsies until he is ready for a bone marrow transplant. Fortunately for Jackson, his brother is a match.
Despite being strong in the face of cancer, Stacy said Jackson feels scared in the unfamiliar confines of the hospital and has lashed out at times.
“He is seeing so many different people and he doesn’t know anybody,” Stacy said. “He is lashing out in anger because there is nothing he has control over. Being poked and prodded, and all the things he has had to get used to, it’s just been hard.”
The news of cancer has been hard for the rest of the family as well. Jackson’s dad is having to go back and forth between Florida and Ohio to check in with Jackson, while also tending to the needs of Jackson’s three siblings, all of which are a few years older than him.
Stacy said receiving support from Curious Apples and the Navarre community has come as a shock, especially as their family doesn’t have many connections in Navarre.
“I don’t have words for it,” Stacy said. “I have had three kids go through Curious Apples. Jackson just absolutely loves his teachers. His teachers reached out to us, sent him care packages, cards, things from his classmates, they have been just so supportive.”