Mifflin County Cancer Rally Keeps the Help Close to Home

BY BRIAN CARSON

There will be music at Kish Park on Saturday afternoon, barbecue smoke in the air, and children wandering through the kind of event that feels familiar before it begins.

People will bring lawn chairs. Someone will win a basket raffle. Somebody will buy food from Danny’s BBQ or Pretty Little Pancakes. Local bands will play from the stage. Friends will stop friends they haven’t seen for a while and ask how the family’s doing.

Then, if the evening does what organizers hope, it will become something more.

The Mifflin County Cancer Rally, set for 4 to 8 p.m. Saturday, May 9, at Kish Park in Lewistown, is free to attend and will raise money for the Bob Perks Cancer Assistance Fund, with proceeds dedicated to helping Mifflin County families battling cancer.

For Colby Guyer, one of the event’s organizers, the idea starts with something almost everyone understands.

“I think everyone knows someone who has or has had the illness, and when they are battling that, they need all the help they can get,” Guyer said. “Bob Perks is providing that type of support, and the funds get to stay local to support those in our community.”

That last part matters.

Cancer is a big word, the kind that can swallow a room. But the bills that follow it can be brutally ordinary: gas, groceries, utilities, and rent. The electric bill doesn’t step aside because someone has a scan scheduled. The refrigerator doesn’t fill itself because a family spent the week driving back and forth to appointments.

The Bob Perks Fund helps cancer patients cover basic living expenses when a diagnosis leads to lost income or higher costs. The fund helps with needs such as rent, utilities, home heating, auto expenses, gas, and grocery gift cards, according to the organization’s website. Payments for expenses are made directly to creditors or vendors, while grocery and gas cards are distributed to applicants.

These aren’t glamorous expenses. They’re the ones waiting on the kitchen table when a family comes home exhausted. In 2025, the fund helped 35 Mifflin County families, sending more than $30,000 for basic expenses.

That record is one reason organizers chose the fund.

Cancer survivor Jennica Deavor, who is scheduled to offer the closing testimony at the rally, said organizations such as the Bob Perks Fund help families focus on treatment and recovery.

“Organizations such as the Bob Perks Fund help ease the financial burden of individuals and families in our community who are battling cancer by providing funding for basic necessities, so their focus is on treatment and recovery,” Deavor said.

“No one should have to choose between paying bills and medical treatment,” Deavor said. “Bob Perks helps ease this hardship.”

The Bob Perks Fund was established in 2006 in memory of Bob Perks, a State College native who died in 2005 after a battle with melanoma. His wife started the organization to help others facing similar challenges.

Many of the volunteers had helped with a similar event in previous years before it dissolved. They wanted their fundraising to have a stronger local impact, so they began building a Mifflin County event around a fund that already had a process in place and a record of helping families here.

“There are not many funds like this that can say they keep their funds local to help neighbors in need,” Guyer said.

So they built an evening around that thought.

Entertainment begins at 4:30 p.m. with Ed Varner, followed by Exit 1 Mile Band at 5:30 p.m. and Brush Mountain Band at 6:30 p.m. Cindy Brown, representing the Bob Perks Fund, is scheduled to speak during opening testimonies at 4 p.m. Deavor is scheduled to offer the closing testimony at 7:30 p.m.

Raffle winners and the 50/50 drawing will be announced at 7:15 p.m. At 7:45 p.m., the event will close with a remembrance walk around Kish Park.

“What do people like to do?” Guyer said. “Listen to some local bands, have some food, celebrate survivors and remember those lost along the way.”

That’s the whole evening, really.

It has the shape of a community fundraiser. Underneath is a county trying to keep hold of its own. That’s often what these events come down to. A collection of small, decent acts lined up until they resemble something sturdy.

One person buys a meal. Another buys a raffle ticket. A local group sets up a table. A food truck gives people a reason to stay. A band fills the silence that can come when people are standing near grief and don’t know exactly what to say.

And then there are the stars.

As part of the rally, people can sponsor an 11-inch star with a message or photo. Some will be in memory of someone who died. Others will carry a message of hope or support for someone still fighting. The stars may be what people remember.

“Like luminarias, it just gives people a way to leave a message of support or remembrance while supporting the fundraiser,” Guyer said.

There’s something old and human in that. People have always tried to give names to their losses. They carve them in stone, print them in church bulletins, write them on cards and say them at dinner tables. At Kish Park, for one evening, they’ll put them on stars.

Cancer can make people feel terribly alone. A diagnosis can shrink the world to test results and waiting rooms. It can make time seem strange. It can put a family on a schedule no one asked for.

Deavor said surviving cancer changes a person’s view of time.

“Being a cancer survivor has made me understand a lot about life,” Deavor said. “How precious life really is. It has shown me that time is fragile, the future is uncertain, and to literally live life to the fullest.”

Survival, she said, doesn’t always mean the fight is over.

“Being a survivor, you still fight,” Deavor said. “You fight with the what-ifs, the fears that going to the doctor and getting scans bring.”

She said she has also learned the importance of advocating for herself and speaking honestly with doctors.

“I have learned that no matter what type of cancer you have, you are not alone,” Deavor said.

That’s why survivor-centered events can matter after the money is counted.

For those who have lived through cancer, the rally is also a place of recognition, the kind that doesn’t need a speech to explain itself. A meal, a chair, a song from the stage, and a crowd of people willing to show up can say plenty.

“I think those who can best understand the journey are those who traveled it,” Guyer said.

The event’s survivor meal is scheduled for 5 p.m. Cancer survivors in Mifflin County were invited to register for a free meal, with additional guests paying $5 per person. The meal is part hospitality and part recognition. It says, in the plain language of small-town events, you’ve been through something, and people see you.

For Deavor, the rally also carries the weight of memory.

“Being a part of the cancer rally is an honor,” Deavor said. “This disease has affected everyone in some way, shape, or form. It reminds us of those that we have lost and at the same time honors survivors and those who continue to fight.”

That may be the real work of the evening: to remember the people who are gone, make room for the people still here, and remind those in treatment that the county has not looked away.

“It is a way to show that as a community we stand together,” Deavor said. “No one is ever alone in this battle.”

Several groups and attractions are scheduled to be part of the rally. The Geisinger Cancer Team, Keystone State Muscle Cars, Kish Cats, and Henderson Historical are among those expected to participate. The Shining Light Train Room is scheduled to be open to the public throughout the event.

If the weather cooperates, the rally will be set up around the stage. If rain threatens, entertainment will move inside the Scooter Car Building. Either way, organizers are telling people to bring chairs.

That instruction feels like a detail worth keeping. Bring a chair. Come sit awhile. Listen to music. Eat something. Stay long enough to remember why you came.

By the time the remembrance walk begins, the park will have held a lot of moods. The easy mood of a Saturday evening. The practical mood of a fundraiser. The nervous mood of testimony. The softer mood that comes when people see a name they know.

Then the walk will carry all of that around the park.

Guyer’s hope for the end of the night is simple.

“That it was a nice event and I will be back next year,” he said.

That may sound modest. In community work, that’s how something lasts. People come once. They feel welcomed. They see where the money goes. They understand that the help stays here. Then they return.

The Mifflin County Cancer Rally is trying to become that kind of event, one built around music and food and the hard math of illness in a small county. Thirty-five families helped last year. More than $30,000 sent for basic needs. And more families are likely to need help next year because cancer doesn’t check the calendar before entering a house.

So the county will gather at Kish Park.

Some will come for the bands. Some will come for the raffles. Some will come because they survived. Some will come because someone they loved didn’t.

And for a few hours on a May evening, those reasons will share the same space.