By Christine Michelle Brauer
UW News Lab
Thirteen years ago, former NFL offensive tackle Jerry Wunsch had a vision. He wanted to help children suffering from cancer reclaim their lives, so that’s when he started the Wunsch Family Foundation. Last Monday night, Wunsch held his fifth annual auction at Hector’s in downtown Kirkland to raise money for the foundation.
“This event is about everyone in the Northwest coming together to help these kids,” Wunsch said.
Local vendors donated everything from wine to signed Seahawks memorabilia, and Wunsch expected to bring in $40,000 for the cause. Many Seahawks football players attended, highlighting Wunsch’s background as a former Seahawks teammate.
The Wunsch Family Foundation provides children with cancer and chronic blood disorders emotional, motivational and memorable experiences through supportive and empowering opportunities. Wunsch accomplishes this by taking the kids on trips.
“I didn’t really know what I was doing at first, when I started,” said Wunsch. “I took kids on a trip to have fun, but I realized these kids had bigger things to talk about. They had things to overcome.”
Wunsch said the kids will show up on the first day with their wigs on, and by the second day they will have taken them off, painted their heads, and be running around proudly. Wunsch approached Hector’s owner Stuart McLeod five years ago and asked him to host the event. McLeod has hosted the auction each year since, and the two have developed a friendship by working together. Regarding the auction, McLeod said that “the most fun for me is the idea that this all goes to the kids. This is a great cause, not to mention a fun way to spend a Monday night.”
Miss Washington Teen USA Camilla Cyr, a Kirkland resident, attended the auction as well.
“I’m here to support the kids,” she said. “Being a title-holder really helps bring visibility to the event.”
Seahawks defensive tackle Craig Terrell also supports Wunsch’s Foundation in a big way: by participating.
“When I came to the Seahawks, some of the older guys were involved,” he said. “My wife, Rachael, and I started going on trips and we loved it. We do a lot of charitable events but when you get to know the kids on the trips, it’s different.”
Terrell and his wife have gone on the winter trips to Wisconsin, where Wunsch takes the children to his home state to teach them to ski, snowmobile and do activities they never imagined being able to do before.
“It’s cool because you get kids from all over the country,” Terrell said. “We become big kids ourselves! I think I get more out of it than they do.”
If the point of the trips is to help kids with cancer emotionally, interaction is certainly the way to go, Wunsch said.
“We are here to help kids open up and help them through the process of having cancer,” Wunsch said. “We want to show them that they don’t have to define themselves by cancer.”
By showing kids that they can do things they don’t think they can do, Wunsch helps kids work through self-esteem issues.
“The kids taught me this,” Wunsch said. “They said, ‘When I cry, adults around me cry. I don’t want them to cry, I just want them to understand.’”
Christine Michelle Brauer is a student in the UW Depart. of Communication News Lab.
