Kids Take Parents To Baseball Game Thanks To Donations, Organizer
DENVER (CBS4)- A special group of children are getting to take their parents to a Colorado Rockies game at Coors Field thanks to the generosity of donations and the drive to give back.
Greg Durfee organizes Youth Cancer Baseball Tour trips to the baseball stadium for kids who are battling cancer.
Durfee once lived on skid row in Los Angeles but now lives in Aurora. Durfee said he was devastated when a friend's nephew died of childhood cancer in 2000. The Youth Cancer Baseball Tour will be taking a group of 25 kids to the Rockies game against the Diamondbacks on Sept. 1, including Trevor Kling.
"I started getting headaches and they kept on getting worse and I started feeling tingling in my arm and leg," said Kling who plays all-star little league baseball and is a big fan of the Rockies.
"He had a collision at home plate and after a couple visits to the hospital they finally did an MRI and realized he had a tumor," said Durfee.
"It turned out there was a tumor in my brain and it was cancerous," said Kling. "Name of the cancer is anaplastic astrocytoma."
That form of cancer is actually the adult form, rarely found in children. Kling had portions of the tumor removed last week.
He said he's feeling better, "It's nice to be out of the hospital."
Kling still has nearly a year of radiation and chemotherapy on his road to recovery but is looking forward to Sept. 1, when he gets to watch the Rockies take on the Diamondbacks.
"It's my life passion. All I want to do is help these kids and these families," said Durfee, who relies on donations to make the trip possible.
This week, Great Clips donated $500 to the Youth Cancer Baseball Tour.
"We want to thank him for everything he does with cancer patients," said one Great Clips manager.
"This is really going to help our families, like Trevor and his dad. They're going to be going to the game with us," said Durfee.
"To go through it with friends is so much easier, I think. I'm so glad for our friends and family," said Dave Kling.
To make a donation to the Youth Cancer Baseball Tour, visit the Take Kids With Cancer to MLB Games GoFundMe page.