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Volume 8, Issue 50
Wednesday, January 3, 2018
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Cougars assist alumni with auction proceeds KEEPING YOU
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By Bryan Jessop For Cardinal Carter Catholic Secondary School, the decision to help support a former student in need was a piece of cake. In response to a serious skiing accident in Michigan that left Cougar alumnus Shawn Florence paralyzed from the waist down, the local high school decided to offer the proceeds from its annual Christmas Cake Auction to help offset the costs of U.S. medical bills. The sixth annual auction of its kind took place in Cardinal Carter’s auditorium Thursday, Dec. 21 and once complete, generated an even $1,000 in support of the Florence family. The donation was accepted by Shawn’s younger brother Scott Florence, also a Cardinal Carter graduate. Scott attended the auction along with his mother Rosemary Cobby and girlfriend Lydia Sandersen and via a live Wifi Internet connection, was greeted along with current staff and students by his brother Shawn from Parkwood Institute in London. Shawn is currently undergoing treatment at Parkwood after being rushed to St. Joseph’s Mercy Oakland Hospital in Pontiac, Mich. following a Sunday, Nov. 26 skiing accident at Pine Knob Ski Resort. After falling at high speed and crashing into a fence at the facility, Shawn suffered Grade A fractures to the T7 and T8 vertebrae, 13 broken ribs, a severed spinal cord and two collapsed lungs. Shawn was with his girlfriend during the skiing trip and about a week after receiving surgery at St. Joseph’s Mercy was transported briefly to Windsor Regional Hospital on Ouel-
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Via a live Internet feed, former Cardinal Carter Catholic Secondary School alumnus Shawn Florence communicates with his mother Rosemary Cobby, Lydia Sandersen and his brother Scott Florence at the school following its annual Christmas cake auction Thursday, Dec. 21. This year’s proceeds of an even $1,000 were donated to the Florence family in support of Shawn, who was partially paralyzed from a skiing accident in Michigan in late November. The Florence family has also started a Go Fund Me Page for Shawn to help offset the expenses of U.S. medical bills and expenses back home involved with accommodating Shawn’s transportation and housing accessibility needs. (SUN Photo)
two weeks prior to Cardinal Carter’s most recent Christmas Cake Auction, Shawn’s family set up a Go Fund Me The support from the page accessible to the public at www. community has been gofundme.com/ awesome. gofundshawn. By It means a lot to us. the time the family — Scott Florence received the donation from Cardinal Carter, a sum of nearly 400 donations from the web In addition to a massive page brought the total raised medical bill from the Michi- to about $45,000 — about gan hospital, the Florence 30 per cent of the $150,000 family is also facing the ex- goal. “The support from the penses of accommodating Shawn’s wheelchair acces- community has been awesibility needs for transpor- some,” said 21-year-old tation and housing. About Scott, who played Cougars lette Avenue before being sent to Parkwood in London.
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hockey before joining the Junior C Wheatley Sharks and then the Junior B Leamington Flyers. “It means a lot to us. This donation ($1,000 from Cardinal Carter) and others will really help out a lot with expenses. The response has been just amazing.” For the past six years, Cardinal Carter’s student council has organized a live, charitable Christmas Cake Auction where its members either bake their own festive holiday creations or set out to arrange a cake donation from a local business. Student council began preparing for the event in early December and this year, auctioned off 20 cakes to
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various classrooms. Each year, proceeds are directed towards a different charity or community-based cause. The week prior to the event, Cardinal Carter teacher Joanne Bateman contacted the Florence family to inform them that they would receive this year’s Christmas Cake Auction funds and to invite them to the event. Donations in support of the local family can be made by visiting the GoFundMe page and clicking on the “Donate Now” bar on the left side of the main page. “Whatever amount people are able to donate, we’re happy with that,” said Scott. “A lot of people have been very generous.”
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