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04/11/2018 08:00 AMSunday, May 6 will mark the eighth annual Hike for Hope led by a group of Valley Regional High School students who are raising money to research cholangiocarcinoma, or bile duct cancer.
The event was first put together by Brooke Adamson, with the help of her son Alex Adamson, daughter Cienna Adamson, and husband Philip Schaller. This is the second year that Brooke’s son and friends will be organizing the event.
After Schaller was diagnosed with bile duct cancer in 2009, Brooke Adamson searched for ways to support more research.
“He had gone through surgery and treatment and I went online to just google ‘bile duct cancer walks.’ I found a hike out in Mountain View, California, in the Bay area, which is where I used to live and I have family there,” Adamson said. “It was a perfect opportunity for us to get a break as a family, take a little trip, see family, and do this hike that a young boy had started for his aunt called Hike for Hope.”
After attending the first walk, the Adamsons stayed in touch with the people they met, who then encouraged them to come back the following year. It was after deciding they couldn’t make the trip a second year that the Adamsons decided to bring Hike for Hope to their own town.
The family organized a hike in Ivoryton on the same date as the California walk, so that they are still walking in unison for this cause.
During the planning of this event, the Adamsons met a man from Deep River, Bill Whaley, who Adamson said “had the identical surgeon, surgery, everything.”
“He ended up coming to hike with us for our second Hike for Hope,” Adamson said. “He lost his battle that year and passed away, so now we do it in memory of him.”
David Hyde, a close friend of Schaller and the previous owner of Essex Hardware, was also diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma shortly after his retirement.
Several years back, the Adamsons held the walk for 12-year-old Christopher Wilke, who was one of the first young people to be diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma. Wilke lived in Burbank California.
“We decided that year, after his grandma contacted me, that we were going to raise the money for his family,” Adamson said. “We did the hike in honor of Christopher Wilke and by the time the walk came around, he had died, so we gave the money to his family and we do the hike in memory of him as well.”
Adamson said that while the hike has always been held in honor of her husband, a cholangiocarcinoma survivor,, and the late Bill Whaley of Deep River and David Hyde of Essex, the walk is really for “all the others who are in the fight or who have lost the battle because the money goes straight to the Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation.”
The boys who have taken over the event organizing the past two years are Alex Adamson, Nikhail Patel, Matt Caron, Jared Dompier, and Brandon Amara. Brooke Adamson said the boys go to local grocery stores to collect donations of waters and granola bars, or other food and drink for the participants. Dunkin Donuts of Deep River donates dozens of donuts and Gorilla Graphics of Middletown makes and supplies the T-shirts.
All of the proceeds go directly to the Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation. In previous years the group has raised between $2,000 and $3,000 for the foundation and each year it sets its sights a little higher.
“It’s real homegrown. We pretty much get our local community of friends and family, there’s a lot of family support,” Adamson said.
The eighth annual Hike for Hope will take place on Sunday, May 6 at 10 a.m. at the Falls River Preserve in Ivoryton. Donations will be collected at the trailhead; donations to support bile duct cancer research can also be made at cholangiocarcinoma.org. For more information on the hike, as well as to find out other ways to contribute to the cause, visit the Hike for Hope Facebook page.