Equine Community Comes Together to Help Young Girl

She may live many miles away, but on Saturday 3-year-old Caitlyn Voellmecke was fresh on the minds of the people who came out for a  at Celtic Woods Stables on Easy St. 

With riders from all over the area coming together more than $3000 was raised to help Caitlyn and her family as she bravely battles a form of cancer known as Lymphoblastic Lymphoma. While she lives out in Ohio, Caitlyn has several family members living on the east coast including her aunt and uncle Renee Nieto and Doug Rousseau and her cousin Danielle Nieto. 

Seeing so many people come out to help their family, all three were thankful for their support. "It's just awesome to have all the support of so many people that you don't even know," Renee said.

The money raised will help with the day-to-day activities of the family including Caitlyn's to brothers, but Renee said no matter where the family is they try to help each other. "When she first got sick our family has taken turns going out to Ohio for a week or two weeks. Everybody has tried to be there to help take care of the boys and help them through such hard times."

When it comes to his great-niece, Doug said she has been an inspiration no matter how hard things have gotten. "Caitlyn has been very strong," he said. "She's done really good with the therapy that she's had so far and she just kept a real strong attitude."

It is that attitude that the family agreed has helped to get the young girl through the treatments. Danielle said it is also that attitude that gave her so much confidence when she came out to the family farm and played with the horses many times bigger than her. "Caitlyn is such an amazing little girl. When you're around her all you can think is positive." 

One of the people responsible for putting the event together was Christie DeBernardis who said she has known the family for many years. As the final tally of funds raised came in DeBernardis said it was "even better than I had hoped for." She added. "I'm really glad that everybody came out, put on a great event and I hop that everybody had fun."

Like many people DeBernardis knows the pain that comes with having a relative stricken with cancer, which she said made the event that much more personal to her. "My uncle lived with me when he had cancer. I can only imagine it's that much tougher being that she's only 3-years-old."

Having known the family for many years, she said she was happy to help in even a small way. "Renee has been extremely good to me as long as I've known her," she said. "She has always gone above and beyond to help me so anything that I can do to help her I'm more than happy to do it."

For more information about Caitlyn check out this website.