When Langley resident Ashley Samborski recently met Andrew and Julia Sors of Abbotsford in a coffee shop, the married couple was expecting him to ask some probing questions about their situation.
Samborski, a Langley resident, had raised $5,000 with his father Gerald to help a family dealing with cancer.
The effort was made to honour the memory of his mother, Adeline, who died of the disease two-and-a-half years ago.
As it turns out, Samborski only had one question for the Sors, whose son Nikolas was diagnosed with stage 4 neuroblastoma just over a year ago.
“Would you be willing to wear the T-shirts and have your picture taken?”
That is, the yellow T-shirts with the “ef cancer” logo that Samborski and his dad have been selling to raise money.
“Ef cancer” has two meanings, one of them unprintable and the other, for younger or more sensitive readers, stands for “everyone fights cancer.”
Either way, the Sors had no issue with the request.
They said yes to wearing the T-shirts, and waited for another question.
“The money’s yours,” Samborski said.
“I went with my gut,” he explained later.
He’d already done a review of the potential candidates, who were located through a social media search campaign, before the meeting.
Several days later, on Sunday, Dec. 20, Samborski formally presented the cheque to the Sors, who came to Langley with Nikolas, 4 and daughter Aleksandra, 1.
The gift will help the Sors recover from a financially draining fight with cancer that has, so far, shown positive results.
Nikolas has responded well to chemotherapy and he’s gained back enough weight to go above the 40-pound mark.
It didn’t help the family finances that Andrew Sors got laid off from his job in the Alberta oil patch around the time Nikolas was diagnosed.
The Sors got to know other families in the same situation and discovered they all have money troubles, mostly the result of not being able to work while helping a relative with cancer.
“Everybody is struggling financially,” Julia Sors said.
That was also the experience of the Samborskis, when father and son both ended up deep in the red during the several months they cared for Adeline.
“I took four months off work and lived in the hospice,” Gerald Samborski said.
“This is absolutely devastating to your financial life.”
It was then father and son decided they wanted to raise enough money to help another family in the same boat.
The Sors are the first people they’ve helped.
Ashley Samborski is hoping it will take less time to raise the next $5,000.
He’s set up a web page at efcancer.ca to promote the cause.