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Since incorporating just over a year ago, the Savannah Walters Memorial Foundation has helped around 200 families, and it plans to continue that work with an event next month for children with cancer or other childhood diseases.

Harvest for Gold will be held Sept. 23 at Family Farm, 18448 Highway 67 north of Malvern, and it will feature "autumn activities," Kim Walters, the foundation's CEO, said.

"We have opened it up to all pediatric cancer and immunocompromised children, and what it is is going to be a safe environment for these children to come and just enjoy autumn activities," she said. "They will have pumpkin painting. They'll have a hay maze that, if they need, their wheelchairs can fit in, and they'll have slides, carousels."

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She said several churches and youth groups will set up booths for activities including face painting, tabletop s'mores, and snow cones.

"We will be set up to where we're the ones wearing the masks and ... keeping them safe, where they can be kind of free and not have to be so strict on everything," Walters said.

With the event being held outdoors, it will also allow the children to enjoy activities they are not usually able to participate in, board member Dana Bates said, noting they want the event to be similar to a "trunk or treat."

"They're gonna let us have the big building there," she said. "And we hope to have different tables set up with all the different activities for these kids because a lot of these kids don't get to experience that.

"Because most of it is outdoor, open air, it's a lot safer for them, and we want them to feel as normal as everybody else does and get to experience the things. I think that's kind of what we try to -- in all of these things. It's just like when we took the stuff to (Arkansas) Children's (Hospital) this last week, those kids need to have normalcy as well."

While the event is free, the foundation asks those attending to register at https://bit.ly/3KLUUVe. Any organization wanting to help sponsor the event or have a booth should reach out to the organization through its Facebook page.

The foundation has been busy over the past year, Walters said.

"In the past year we've helped about 200 families through helping with financial things," she said. "We've helped with the electricity bills -- utility bills all the way around. We've helped with rent, mortgage payments. We have helped with car payments. We have done fuel cards. We've even helped with final arrangements for a couple of patients and families."

It has also provided "home away from home" bags for pediatric cancer patients and their families.

"It's a bag designed that they can carry back and forth, and they can leave it packed," Walters said. "It has hygiene products, shampoo, deodorant, phone chargers. It has a blanket. It has a (Amazon) Fire (TV) Stick, so they can hook it up to their TV in the room. It has some little meds, like Tylenol, Tums, some things like that."

Bates said there is also information with resources in the bag.

"It also has a folder in it with resources and information that caregivers -- the mom, the dad -- would need," she said.

"It also has a devotional in it, a little journal, because as Kim learned with Savannah, they're telling you things so quickly that you can't absorb it. So because Kim had experience with that we tried to include all the things that she wishes she would have had initially."

The foundation has an Amazon gift registry at https://bit.ly/3QL63cD for items that will be included in the bags.

"Those things are things we have on our Amazon wishlist for the foundation -- things that are ongoing needs that anybody can go in and purchase, and it's sent straight to the Foundation address. We have our little area that we have all that. Some when we have a need, we pack several and take them and drop them off."

Print Headline: WATCH | Harvest for Gold event planned for immunocompromised kids

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