The 13th annual Bowling for Bone Marrow rolled through another successful fundraising drive Saturday at Windsor's Rose Bowl Lanes.
Hundreds of supporters filled the bowling alley, raising more than $27,000 for The Katelyn Bedard Bone Marrow Association. Joanne Bedard and her husband started the group after their daughter Katelyn to leukemia.
Bedard tells AM800 News the community support year in and year out helps Katelyn's memory live on.
"To remember her and to think that so many people have been affected, that she's touched so many lives. That to me is just, it's incredible," she says. "It's impossible to put into words how much it means to us that all of these people come out to support us."
The association donates a portion of the money to researchers at the University of Windsor and the University of Montreal.
Bedard says the rest of the cash goes towards easing the burdens of a bone marrow transplant for up to 30 families every year.
"If it's an adult they can't return to work right away, if it's a child then usually the parent has to take time off work," says Bedard. "There are additional expenses with having to be off of work and then their transplants aren't done in Windsor so local families have to travel."
She says grants are offered up to $750 for each family.
"Travel expenses, there's lodging expenses, there's meal expenses while they're there," she says. "I know it's not a huge amount of money that we give them, but it is a little bit for them to do with whatever they feel they need it for."
Bowling for Bone Marrow has raised more than $650,000 since its inception in 2005.