Biggar boy battling cancer for the third time in less than 7 years

First diagnosed with cancer at the age of three, ten year old CJ Dunn out of Biggar has faced a long road during his battle with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.

We wrote a story after the first CJ Dunn Benefit Auction ran back in 2017 raised over $20,000 from local community donations. We checked in with Dunn a few years after that for a 2020 story on National Leukemia Awareness Month. 

Now Dunn is unfortunately back in our news cycle, after a family friend in Angela Love emailed the West Central Online newsroom with word that the young boy recently relapsed and is now engaging in his third fight against cancer in less than 7 years:

Poster from Love's email

Money is being raised for Dunn through a GoFundMe page, but Love and a few others have stepped up to run another auction after the big donation it provided roughly 7 years ago. 

"Myself, and two other local moms here Jennifer Simpson-Heimbecker and Amanda Poletz, came together and thought we should do an online auction," said Love as she described how the ball got rolling, "The town was excited to find a way to help CJ and his mom and dad. I think everyone was looking for a way to help, and this gave them an outlet."

Love didn't want to speculate on any dollar figures coming out of the auction yet, but 277 items up for bid is giving them hope for a big cheque to present.

Love gave a current update on CJ.

"CJ has already done his first round of chemo. He has been to Calgary to collect some cells, they they will prepare for further treatment so he is going to be spending a lot of time in Calgary."

Love continued on as the Dunn family has really been against the odds.

"To add to everything, he has a brand new baby sister who just got out of NICU, she was born prematurely. Between CJ and the new baby, and a toddler, (they) have a lot of their plate. Anything we can do to help her is just going to ease the burden."

The auction ends Friday night, and anyone who misses out can still donate through the GoFundMe link.

Love detailed another way to donate.

"The credit union here in Biggar has a trust fund set up for CJ that people can donate to as well."

As stated by Love in her email, the funds from this auction will be used to support this family during their time in Calgary, along with covering the travel back and forth from Alberta to Saskatchewan. It's a truly unimaginable situation, that has an opportunity to see some financial support that will allow the Dunn family to feel some alleviated stress, and focus that energy back into the children.

 Anyone looking to donate or participate in the auction before it closes should know both Love and Poletz are located out of Biggar, and the third helper Heimbecker is located closer to the Kindersley area. Delivering the auction items should go seamlessly with the great local team put together to help things move along. They even enlisted the help of a local courier.

"We will deliver items free of charge, anywhere they need to go. Just to expand our pool of bidders."

People can access the auction here: Online Auction for CJ 💛 | Facebook

Anyone interested in helping out can contact Angela Love at 306-951-7580, or Amanda Poletz at 306-948-6979 for Biggar and Saskatoon area donations. Jennifer Simpson-Heimbecker can be reached at 306-951-7720 for Rosetown and Kindersley area donations.