In this season of giving, Gavin Beltran and his family need our compassion and generosity. Come hear children sing Christmas songs and help decorate a tree with your offerings for the Beltran family.
Each holiday season, Culpeper Seventh-Day Adventist Church “adopts” a family or families in need of help. By what is likely divine providence, we happened to meet Amber Beltran while handing out church fliers. We learned of her son, Gavin, who is gravely ill with acute myeloid leukemia, a highly dangerous form of disease that afflicts only 500 children each year in the U.S.
Gavin has endured chemo at Children’s Hospital and is now receiving radiation therapy at Johns Hopkins. Gavin will be 2 on Dec. 31. But his prognosis is not good. A bone marrow transplant is both essential and extremely difficult to find a perfect match for. Doctors may have to perform a “half-match” transplant as a last resort.
If that becomes the case, the procedure is deemed a “clinical trial” by their insurance company and will not be covered. This could place the Beltran family in additional debt up to $500,000. They already have significant medical expenses, and frequent commutes between Baltimore and Culpeper add to their burden.
To complicate matters further, their older son Logan was recently diagnosed with autism.
The strain on their resources and their spirit is enormous.
After we visited Gavin at Johns Hopkins, we realized the needs of this family far outweighed the resources of our community and our church. Along with abundant prayer and a local fundraiser, we are asking the Washington region and even the nation to open their hearts to Gavin and his family this Christmas season and beyond.
Want to contribute?
» A fundraiser to help cover medical expenses for Gavin Beltran will be Sunday from 4 to 5 p.m. at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church parish hall, 115 N. East St., Culpeper. You can also send donations to:
Gavin Beltran Leukemia Fund
c/o Fauquier Bank
10 Courthouse Square
Warrenton, VA 20186
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement