CANTON, Ohio–Little Olivia Barr flips through her scrapbook. She remembers her mom fondly.
“Here’s a couple pictures of me horseback riding and here’s other pictures with my mom. It was a lot of fun,” she said pointing at her white-bound book, with the words “My times in the past with mom.”
Olivia’s mother, Erika Cooper, was diagnosed with stage-four colon cancer five years ago. She died this April.
“All my entire life, since I was three, she has had that,” Olivia said. “And all my life I have grown up with her being bald and having a wig and everything.”
After her mother’s death, Olivia was watching the television and noticed a commercial raising breast cancer awareness. She when went to her aunt Kelly for help.
“Colon cancer isn’t a pretty cancer. It’s less noticed,” said Kelly Barr, who now takes care of Olivia. “She wanted to teach people about it.”
In her mother’s honor, the 9-year-old created an organization called Kids Involved with Cancer Research. She will be host of the first kids walk fundraiser in Canton this weekend.
“We’re just proud of her,” Kelly said. “It’s great that she’s taking something that’s just so terrible for a little child to go through and making a big difference in a big way that can happen locally.”
Olivia has about $1,500 pledged from various donors. Her goal is to raise $5,000. All proceeds from the walk-a-thon will go to the OSU Cancer Research Center in Columbus.
Both Kelly and Olivia hope the effort will help lead to a cure.
“A lot of folks didn’t think (Erika) would go that long, and she just refused to listen to any of them,” Kelly said. “She fought and she gave a lot of good memories to Olivia.”
The walk-a-thon runs from 1 to 3 p.m. on Saturday, July 23, in Canton. Children and adults are welcome to attend.
For more information, go to http://kicr.org.