Five months after 5-year-old Ava died from a rare brain tumor, her mom will use brownies, cookies and other snacks to help bring awareness to the condition that took her daughter's life.
"Part of my mission and purpose is to bring awareness to this," Giannina Gioe said.
Proceeds from the bake sale Sunday, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in front of the Goodwill store at 1766 N. Keyser Ave., will help with a project Mrs. Gioe and her husband, Michael, have planned since shortly after Ava died in July.
They have filed paperwork to receive nonprofit status for their organization, A Miracle for Ava, a pediatric brain tumor foundation aimed at helping fund pediatric brain cancer research. While a group of Old Forge high school students has donated $900 to the organization, the bake sale will officially launch its outreach efforts.
Since Ava died, Mrs. Gioe said she has learned of two other area children with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, a cancer that usually kills 90 percent of kids 18 months after diagnosis. The median age for the disease's diagnosis is 5 to 9 years old, according to data from the Boston Children's Hospital, one of the nation's leading pediatric hospitals. The cancer accounts for 10-15 percent of all childhood central nervous system tumors.
Along with awareness of the pediatric cancer, the Gioes want to raise money for clinical research, a key part of finding new ways to fight the disease.
"I have a personal vendetta against this disease," Mrs. Gioe said. "I just want to see it eradicated."
With a bake sale as a first step, Mrs. Gioe said she plans larger fundraisers including a 5K in April and a gala in October to help fund research for fighting the cancer. Using her network of more than 13,000 supporters on Facebook and other social media, Ava's mom said her daughter would approve of helping fund cancer research.
"This is a world that she knew very well," Mrs. Gioe said of the brain cancer. "She would have been thrilled to know she could have helped anybody."
Contact the writer: rward@timesshamrock.com, @rwardTT on Twitter.