Sale, car wash Saturday to help boy with cancer
Fourth-grader Brian Ott, 9, was scheduled to undergo surgery Tuesday to remove a tumor on his upper spine.
Students and teachers are staging a rummage sale and car wash fundraiser from 7 a.m.-noon Saturday at Rock Creek Elementary, located at 8970 Mexico Road behind the Triad Plaza West shopping center in O'Fallon.The rummage sale will take place in the gymnasium. High school students will help the younger kids wash cars in the parking lot near the playground.
Michelle Cates, Rock Creek special education teacher, said the rummage sale will include clothes and household items, including appliances such as a stove, refrigerator and dishwasher. The school is accepting item donations from 4-8 p.m. Friday.
Cates said the school will not set fixed prices for the sale items or the car wash. Instead, it will ask for donation offers.
Ott has juvenile pilocytic astrocytoma, a usually benign form of childhood brain cancer. He has additional tumors in his brain and lower spine. His surgery was deemed necessary to prevent him from becoming a quadriplegic, Cates said. Ott's father lost his job and the family has no insurance beyond Medicaid, she said.
