Wayland Throwing Carnival For Girl With Cancer

WAYLAND, MA — Ellie Levine doesn't stop for much — she's 5 years old and can usually be found playing mommy to her little sister Annie, running laps around her parents, or dancing."She's a unique soul," her parents said. Nothing keeps her down for long, not even cancer.

Five months ago, Ellie was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the most common type of child cancer. Since her diagnosis, the Levines' lives have been a whirlwind of hospital stays and treatments. Once family and friends learned of Ellie's diagnosis, word spread quick and soon the entire Wayland community offered help.

Now, Ellie is five months into chemotherapy treatments and the Levines are getting their girls ready for a community carnival being thrown just for them next month — organized by a complete stranger.

Doug Alongi saw Ellie's story online when a friend shared the GoFundMe page her parents made. Alongi shared the post with friends to spread the word, but wanted to do more. He reached out to Ellie's dad, Doug Levine, to meet and chat.

"We went out and got a beer — I picked his brain because I'm also dealing with a family member having cancer," Alongi said, as they compared experiences, the conversation got emotional and Alongi knew he had to do more.

"When Doug told us he wanted to do something for the girls, we thought he just meant take them out for a movie and ice cream or something, we weren't expecting a whole carnival," Levine said.

Alongi said the carnival idea snowballed while he brainstormed ways to give the girls the perfect birthday party.

"The family told me the girls missed their birthday party because of the diagnosis so I thought, what would a 5-year-old want to do for her birthday," Alongi said, and carnival was the winning idea.

Wayland Carnival Day is set for Sept. 15 from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. at Wayland Middle School. The entire event was planned in two months by Alongi and his team of eight who have made everything from food trucks, bounce house insurance and parking permits happen.

The Levines said Ellie and Annie are excited about the carnival. The day they received Ellie's diagnosis, they were expecting good news about her acceptance to a kindergarten Spanish immersion program. Instead, they received some of the worst news a parent could get.

"It's probably the hardest thing to watch, when your kid is suffering and there's nothing you can do about it," Doug Levine said. "You just completely place all of your trust in your kid's life, in the hands of a group of people you've never met before."

The Levines said they consider themselves extremely lucky to live in a community that has access to Boston Children's Hospital and Dana Farber's Jimmy Fund Clinic. "We see people there from all over the world who have uprooted their lives to be there — we're lucky we're only 20 miles away," Doug Levine said.

Since her treatments started, Ellie has kept her infectious, sunny disposition and surprised nurses and even her parents by maintaining her active lifestyle. "When she was going through treatments while she was in school, she wanted the nurses to write her a note saying she was able to go back to school that day," Leah Levine said, "They were amazed, usually they get requests to do the opposite because the treatments really drain kids."

The family is optimistic about Ellie's future and the odds are on their side. Ninety-eight percent of children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia go into remission soon after treatment and 90 percent of those children are cured. Ellie's road to remission and recovery is still some ways away, with two years of chemotherapy ahead.

The Levines moved to Wayland just before their girls were born, looking for a tight knit community with good schools to raise their children. They immediately got involved in the community — Doug Levine is on the Board of Selectmen and Leah Levine is part of the Wayland Children and Parents Association.

"We've always been very involved in the community, but the way they've reached out to help keep us afloat through this is incredible," the Levines said.

Neighbors and community members have set up schedules to cook dinner for the family during the week, and take care of Annie. To put a number on the outpouring support that Ellie and her family have received, their GoFundMe campaign raised more than $80,000, which is $50,000 more than the original goal.

September's carnival will not only be a celebration of the girls but a way to raise money for Dana Farber's Jimmy Fund. Alongi said he and his team hope to raise $10,000 for the Jimmy Fund. While the donations have come flooding in for the carnival, Alongi said it's volunteers he appreciates most.

"We've had people writing checks left and right and that's great, but when you donate your time and say, 'How can I help?' that really means something," he said.

Perhaps it's Ellie's optimism, or maybe she learned it from her parents, but the Levines aren't letting the cancer diagnosis dampen their outlook.

"If we’re lucky, maybe we’ll look back on this as the biggest (mis)adventure of our lives, an unplanned 'layover' to be sure, but one that will forever remind us not to take a single moment for granted," their GoFundMe reads.

For now, the Levines are content to watch their girls play and fight the way sisters do, snack on their favorite foods, and get excited for their carnival — a day where Ellie isn't a patient but a normal 5-year-old whose biggest decision to make is which bounce house to tackle first with her sister.

GoFundMe is a promotional partner of Patch.