Retired police officers group donates to Lynn families with cancer-stricken daughters

LYNN – Cops For Kids with Cancer – a group of retired police officers – gave two Lynn families with 2-year-old girls fighting cancer checks for $5,000 each on Thursday.Christen Crosby brought her daughter, Skyla Blaney, straight from radiation therapy in Boston to the ceremony at Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy’s office. Skyla is being treated for Stage 4 Neuroblastoma.Likewise, 2-year-old Camila Rosado has been enduring daily chemotherapy while she’s being treated for Leukemia.The checks the families received Thursday from Cops For Kids with Cancer Chairman of the Board Robert Faherty are a huge help – especially less than 10 days before Christmas – and can be used for any expense they need it for.”Oh my goodness, you have no idea,” Crosby said Thursday when asked about how helpful it was for her family to receive the money. “We have been really struggling financially. I was working full-time, but I had to quit my job when Skyla was diagnosed. This is just so wonderful.”Robert Guiney, a retired Boston Police detective and board member for Cops For Kids with Cancer, submitted Crosby’s family to the entire board to receive the money after reading a story in The Daily Item about Skyla’s fight against cancer.”I was so moved after reading the story in The Item that I wanted to do what I could to help,” Guiney said. “We voted for seven donations of $5,000 each at our December meeting.”Guiney, who worked for the Boston Police Department for 41 years and is also a former president of the Boston Police Patrolman’s Association, said the organization was formed by Boston Police Captain John Dow, who founded the organization before losing his own battle with cancer.”This whole organization is such a good thing. We raise a ton of money and nothing goes to anybody but the children,” Guiney said.The board then learned about Camila Rosada and voted to give her family $5,000 as well.”It’s just so helpful,” Leonora Contreras, Camila Rosada’s mother, said Thursday during the ceremony as her daughter sucked on lollipops and posed for pictures.In addition to the checks, the organization also gave each girl a T-shirt and hat, along with Teddy bears for them and their siblings.”That’s important because sometimes the other children in the family feel left out,” John McManus, a retired Boston Police Detective and Cops For Kids with Cancer board member, said Thursday.The families also received a Lynn Police Department blanket from Lynn Police Chief Kevin Coppinger.The mayor, who gave Camila lollipops and took turns holding Skyla, noted how difficult the children’s cancer must be for their families.”As a parent myself, I don’t know how you can get through something like this,” Kennedy said.Contreras said her daughter has more than two years of chemotherapy treatments left, but the doctors have said her prognosis is good.”They say this type of Leukemia is very curable,” she said Thursday.Despite the difficulty of enduring chemotherapy, Camila handles it well, her mother said.”If she gets it on Monday, on Tuesday she’ll be good,” Contreras said.Likewise, Skyla still has daily radiation treatments through Dec. 23, when she will get a break and then begin Immunotherapy on Jan. 2, Crosby said.Immunotherapy is a treatment that uses your body’s own immune system to help fight cancer, according to the American Cancer Society.During that process, she’ll be in and out of the hospital for six months, Crosby said.Skyla is also walking with her mother’s help, which she wasn’t when she was first diagnosed in April.”We’re just hoping for the best and this (the donation) shows us there’s great people out there,” she said.The volunteers who work for Cops for Kids With Cancer raise money for children’s oncology departments in Boston, but they also give money directly to families, like they did Thursday, because families with a child with cancer face enormous financial pressure.”We’ve had two families that were ready to go to the homeless shelter before we gave them the ch