Dan LaMagna is Affiliate Chair for PanCAN’s NEPA Affiliate. Here, with his family.
Editor’s note: April 18-24 is Volunteer Appreciation Week and we’re turning the spotlight on some of the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network’s (PanCAN) invaluable volunteers, who really make it all happen. We’re grateful for their energy and enthusiasm every day.
Some of Dan LaMagna’s favorite memories of his dad are of the times they enjoyed sports together.
A favorite memory – when Dan and his dad, pictured, met heavyweight champ Lennox Lewis.
There was the day they got personally escorted backstage at the All-Star Café after boxing at Madison Square Garden – by the famed heavyweight champion boxer Lennox Lewis, himself – for a VIP meet-and-greet. Dan was just a teen, but it seems like yesterday.
La’Reuance and Sandra Volunteer to Honor Parents, Help Others by
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Editor’s note: In honor of Black History Month, PanCAN is celebrating the contributions of our community’s Black supporters and the incredible ways they’re making a difference for pancreatic cancer patients.
“Amazing.”
Sandra (left) and La’Reuance (right) honor their parents by volunteering with PanCAN
Those were the words Sandra Howell Jackson and La’Reuance Allen used to describe their PanCAN family.
Both of their lives had changed in 2016, when Sandra lost her mom to pancreatic cancer, just shy of 11 months after diagnosis, and La’Reuance’s dad – after whom she was named – was diagnosed with the same disease. He passed away just three months later.
Robyn Hobson is the picture of positivity.
To start 2020, 29-year-old Robyn Hobson was named Teacher of the Year at her school. Five months later, she was diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer.
But the fourth grade math and science teacher refuses to let that get her down.
“I want to bring a positive voice to this disease,” she said.
She’s teaming up with local Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PanCAN) volunteers to do that by sharing her story and positivity – and raising awareness of the disease through social media and community events.
In May, Robyn had gone to the doctor with some side pain and nausea that wouldn’t go away. “I felt pretty normal, and the doctors told me I was in great shape and great health and they didn’t think anything major was wrong.”