GAINESVILLE, Fla. — They gathered Saturday morning on the UF campus for a half day of fun and games at the Climb for Cancer Foundation’s sports camp.
The kids in attendance had cancer, have survived cancer, or are a sibling of a cancer patient. That was the case for Levi, a camp attendee whose younger sister, Annabelle, has received her second cancer diagnosis and is unable to leave the hospital.
Levi’s mother, Sophie Dykes, explained that Levi often does not get much attention because his sister needs most of their parents’ time and energy.
“This was another good thing to do with him to get him out of the hospital,” Dykes said.
The family is from Georgia, but Annabelle is being treated here in rival territory with the annual Florida-Georgia game set to kick off in three days in Jacksonville. Her mother says Levi has lots of Georgia Bulldogs signed merchandise.
He is unsure what to do with it lately.
“He’s a Gator fan because they’re saving his sister’s life,” Dykes said.
The Climb for Cancer event is a special one on the UF calendar and offers families such as Levi’s a respite from day-to-day life dealing with the disease.
For the first time since 2019, UF student-athletes and those families came together for an array of activities at three Gators sports facilities on Saturday. Since this event had been dormant in the post-COVID era, everyone involved was overjoyed to be back.
Climb for Cancer Foundation co-founder Diane Farb called Saturday a “great new birth, if you will, of the sports camps.”
The event included soccer, volleyball, basketball and football, followed by lunch with Gators mascots Albert and Alberta.
Ron Farb, who co-founded the organization with his wife, watched as kids and UF student-athletes played and took a break from the real world on a pleasant October morning.
“You can’t even measure the impact that this makes on the children,” Ron Farb said. “To give up Saturday to come and play with the kids is amazing [for the student-athletes]. We get letters back from parents saying, ‘My child will never forget the time they spent with the student-athletes.’ “
When starting the Gainesville-based organization, Ron and Diane dreamed of supporting child cancer patients and their families. Ron started raising funds to do this through his hobby of climbing mountains. To date, he has climbed five of the seven summits around the globe.
Not only is this event special for the children, but it is also a humbling experience for the student-athletes.
“This is one of my favorite things to do,” said UF track and field team member Joshua Brockman.
The Climb for Cancer experience was heartwarming for first-time attendees and those who helped organize the event.
Pierre Banks is assistant director of community development at the Hawkins Center. He works daily with UF student-athletes and organized their involvement.
“It’s good for our student-athletes to get perspective. When you are around a group like this, it makes you realize how blessed you are,” Banks said. It changes you.”
Banks wasn’t just a bystander. He participated and shared in the smiles of the day.
“The kids, they are special people, and you would never think they were going through what they’re going through,” Banks said.
And he’s right.
The kids ran, jumped, laughed and played like they had never even stepped foot in a hospital before. The student-athletes had a blast playing sports they don’t typically play.
Gators swimmer Skip Donald ran around the football field at the Gators indoor practice facility, chasing kids trying to score.
The event stretched beyond the field for Donald.
“It gives the kids a chance to see how we interact with each other and other people,” he said.
On this day, everyone was on the same team. The teamwork was contagious.
The student-athletes know how much weight their words and actions carry, and they want to use them to benefit the community. Climb for Cancer is a special event toward that goal.
“I think as a student-athlete, it’s important to participate because we have such a strong voice in the Gator community,” said Chloi Clark, a member of the UF gymnastics team.
They had a captive audience.