Paws Parade of Hope offers support for people struggling with cancer
By Jeff Kurowski | On Mission
GREEN BAY — Susan Gee became emotional, including a few tears, when discussing Paws Parade of Hope, which raises funds for families struggling with cancer. The nonprofit’s 18th annual event will be virtual this year, Sept. 30 through Oct. 14.
For Gee, this year’s fundraiser will be the first without her friend, Linda Fairchild, who was the inspiration for the inaugural event in 2007.
Fairchild died of cancer on Nov. 23, 2023. She and Gee, founder and organizer of the Paws Parade of Hope chapter, had been friends since they were first-grade classmates in Casco.
“Linda had colon cancer that metastasized to her liver,” said Gee, a member of Prince of Peace Parish, Green Bay (Bellevue). “I saw her dying in front of me 22 years ago. I told her that we need to seek some other options.”
Treatments at a different cancer center healed Fairchild. When she was five years cancer free, they decided to form a Paws Parade of Hope chapter.
“I wanted to do something to give back. Linda was single. She never had any extra means to help her with things,” said Gee. “I was just going to do it once. Everybody was saying after that first year that, ‘You have to do it again.’”
The event is a fundraiser to support people struggling with cancer, but it also “honors our pets for their healing presence in our lives, especially for people in catastrophic illness, such as cancer,” said Gee.
She said she witnessed the healing presence of her late Yorkie, Chyna.
“I was having a blue day, crying in bed one morning, probably worrying about Linda, and she came up and started licking my tears,” said Gee. “It made me smile. It filled my heart with joy and that sadness melted away.”
“Linda would come and stay with us. She was living in Appleton. We were in Kewaunee. She would stay with us three or four days of the week. I would hear her talking to the dog more than me sometimes,” she added. “It was reaching that place where humans can’t, that unconditional love.”
The annual Paws Parade of Hope fundraiser was held in person until COVID-19 forced it to become an online event in 2020. The in-person gatherings included a dinner, silent auction, memory board and pet fashion show. Gee said that she is grateful to on-air personalities from WFRV Local 5 for serving as emcees over the years.
The auction now continues online as well as the pet contest with gift cards as prizes.
“We do the memory board online now ((20+) PAWS Parade of HOPE Reels | Facebook),” said Gee. “(Participation) has more than doubled because I run the reels all year long with music. I always cry when I do that because it’s beloved pets and any loved one you’ve lost.”
Gee was a longtime member of Holy Rosary Parish, Kewaunee, prior to the move she and her husband, Travis, and dog, Venus, made to the Green Bay area four years ago.
She said she relies on her faith through tough times.
Gee lost her older brother, Danny, to cancer when he was 22. She was 19 at the time. Gee also lost a boyfriend to a motorcycle accident when she was 25.
“The fragility of life resonated early on for me,” she said. “It also made me not fear death. When we get (to heaven), it’s going to be a great place.”
Gee recalls her uncle, the late Bishop Mark Schmitt, being a “strong force in the family” during her brother’s cancer journey. He served as an auxiliary bishop in the Diocese of Green Bay from 1970 to 1978 before becoming bishop of the Diocese of Marquette Mich.
She also recalled her uncle, who passed away in 2011, telling her that she reminded him of her father, Charles Schmitt. Gee said that she is “walking her father’s footsteps” with Paws Parade of Hope.“(My father) raised money for cancer,” she said. “He would go out and ask businesses to donate $100.”
“If anyone wants to question if there is a God, this was not on my bucket list. (God) saw more in me, my potential, than I ever thought I had,” said Gee.
Financial donations and proceeds from the auction for Paws Parade of Hope are distributed to people struggling with cancer through Community Benefit Tree.
“The goal is to try to alleviate their financial stress,” said Gee. “If you’re going through cancer, you don’t know if you can work, if you’ll ever go back to work again, if you’re going from a two-salary family to one or if you will survive. I just know how hard it was for Linda.”
Gee wrote a letter that is given to recipients of funds from Paws Parade of Hope.
“I let them know that my prayers are with them,” she said “I wrote a survivor story about Linda before we started the fundraiser. The message is not to give up hope. One place may say there’s nothing they can do. That doesn’t mean that there’s not another place that may offer something.”
Gee said that she has been asked if she will retire from the organization anytime soon.
“Then I will sit here and dwell on all the sadness. I can’t do that,” she said. “It’s been my saving grace. It keeps Linda close. She would want that. It’s hard to stop when you know you’re helping people.”
For information about Paws Parade of Hope and the 2024 fundraiser, including the silent auction and online pet contest, visit Paws Parade of Hope- Impact Fund-Cancer – Community Benefit Tree, Inc. (flipcause.com).
