Beloved Fairfield Daycare Owner Battles Cancer, Support Pours In

FAIRFIELD, CT — The community is rallying around a beloved daycare owner who is battling cancer and was recently forced to close the business. Fairfield’s Deanna Herlihy, who is known to many as "Miss Dee," closed her Curiosity Corner daycare on March 1 after operating it for the last 19 years, according to News12 Connecticut.

News12 reports Herlihy was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer last summer, on her 60th birthday, and family members say the cancer has spread throughout her bones and body. A GoFundMe page has been launched in support of Herlihy and her family.

“Ms. Dee is the first teacher many of our little ones ever had,” reads a post on the GoFundMe page, which was created by Amanda Morgan. “For the past 19 years at Curiosity Corner she taught them letters, shapes, colors, kindness, a love of nature on their walks to the park and helped them create keepsake art projects.”

After being cancer-free for nearly 20 years, she learned last summer that breast cancer “had returned and spread to her bones and lungs,” according to the post. She had surgery to drain the fluid in her right lung and underwent another surgery in the second lung on March 1.

“For the past several years, after her husband was seriously injured at their daughter's wedding, Ms. Dee has been the sole provider for her family,” according to the GoFundMe page. “He has been through eight surgeries in the past three years and suffered health complications. Donations to this GoFundMe will go to help Ms. Dee and her family financially while she is unable to work.”

Herlihy is still recovering from her surgery on March 1 and has a visiting nurse tend to her several times a week, according to an update on the GoFundMe page this week.

More than $14,000 has been raised on the GoFundMe page as of Thursday afternoon.

For more information, or to make a donation, visit the GoFundMe page here.

Read the full report on News12 Connecticut here.