Still changing lives

Kelly McGeough Foundation lends hand to hundreds of kids, their families

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BROOKINGS – When leukemia claimed 10-year-old Kelly McGeough’s life on Jan. 4, 1983, the Brookings boy’s story didn’t end. Instead, it took on a whole new form in the shape of the Kelly McGeough Foundation, which has helped hundreds of area children and their families in the decades since Kelly’s death.

Breck Hirrschoff and Chase Struck are among the children whose lives have been shaped for the better by the foundation’s efforts.

Celene Hirrschoff, Breck’s mother, said her son was 12 at the time of his diagnosis with DFSP (dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans). She said that it’s a very rare sarcoma of the soft tissue, and that Breck’s was right by the spine on his lower back.

“(Breck’s) a very active kid that wanted to just get back to life,” said Celene Hirrschoff, who lives in Brookings with her husband Jason. “We kept it pretty quiet, so there’s still a lot of people that don’t know he had cancer.”

She said her son was diagnosed in May 2018 and the treatments took place in June 2018 in Rochester, Minnesota, at the Mayo Clinic. He was back on his feet by August 2018. She added that follow-up appointments still take place every six months at Mayo Clinic in Rochester and that, after five years of follow-ups with no cancer found, Breck will be officially considered cancer free.

“(The foundation) took away a large chunk of the financial burden, and we could just focus on Breck healing,” Celene Hirrschoff said. “I honestly didn’t think about the financial part of it until the bills started rolling in after the surgery. … I didn’t even realize how huge it was until after everything kind of settled and I didn’t have these huge bills in front of me.”

Celene Hirrschoff said the foundation helped pay for gas, some of the hotels and also helped with part of the co-insurance. “I couldn’t even tell you all they helped with. I know I turned in some of the bills through the application process and then, before I knew it, there was a big chunk of it gone. It was huge.”

Jan Struck of Brookings, Chase’s mother, told a similar tale of her family’s experience with the foundation after her son was born prematurely on June 26, 2004, in Sioux Falls at only about 28 weeks’ gestation.

Jan and her husband Wally had been married not quite a year when Chase arrived early, weighing only 1 pound, 15 ounces at birth. Their son spent 76 days in the neonatal intensive care unit before coming home on Sept. 9, 2004 – 11 days before what would have been his official due date on Sept. 20, 2004.

“He’s now a senior in high school, and he’s doing really well,” Jan Struck said, adding that Chase is into debate and wants to go to college for computer science.

“(The foundation) definitely helped us out,” she said. “They would pay for meals while I was down in Sioux Falls, or when my husband would come down, too, they would help pay for meals. They gave us gas money to be able to drive back and forth.”

She said word of mouth played a key role in raising her awareness about the help that was available. 

“I found out from different people who knew about the (Kelly McGeough Foundation),” Jan Struck said. “I had actually never heard of the foundation before this happened to me, so I was glad that people were telling me about it because it definitely helped to not have to worry when you’re not working … about paying for food or for gas.”

Knowing Kelly

Breck, Chase and their families’ stories are now part of the Kelly McGeough Foundation’s legacy, a legacy whose roots trace all the way back to a little boy whose short life graced this world beginning on July 20, 1972.

“He was just a neat kid all the way around. Big brown eyes. Easy smile. He just loved people,” his mother, Sandra McGeough, said. “Kelly was an amazing son. He was a fourth-grader at Hillcrest School.

“When he died, his death impacted his fourth-grade class very much,” she continued. “… He was very fun-loving. He loved his family and friends. He loved Matchbox cars. He had a collection of over 300 cars, and he knew the kind of cars they were, that sort of thing – he loved his collection.”

Sandra McGeough, who lives on Lake Poinsett with her husband Bill, said their son endured leukemia twice – the first time when he was just 3 years old, and it was acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL). He went into remission for seven years, she said, before a second type of leukemia, acute myeloblastic leukemia (AML), emerged when Kelly was 10.

“He was very brave, courteous, and he liked to play tricks on people, especially his nurses,” Sandra McGeough said.

She told the story about how, one time during treatment, Kelly asked his father to bring up a rubber tarantula. She said Kelly put it under his covers at night, and when the nurse came in to check on him, “I guess they woke up almost the whole ward because she was so frightened. It was really a funny little joke.”

He wanted to grow up to be an ambulance driver, Sandra McGeough said, adding that Kelly and his sister Jayne were best friends, and that when he was in the hospital, they talked every morning and every night.

“He was brave through the whole thing, and he became the sweetheart of the community,” his mother said, adding that they were raising funds for a bone marrow transplant, but he died before it could take place.

Offering a hand

The Kelly McGeough Foundation rose from the story of that little boy’s life.

“We help with medical, travel and food expenses. We (have) helped hundreds of children over the years. Our goal is to help families with the added expenses that insurance doesn’t cover,” Sandra McGeough said. “So many times, people don’t realize how much it costs a family to travel back and forth to the centers … to live at the Ronald McDonald House or other accommodations … to keep in touch with family.

“There are families that don’t have money to get to Sioux Falls for treatment. And so they contact us, and we provide the help that they need,” she added.

The foundation, whose help is available to children and their families in Brookings County, uses an application as part of its effort to direct assistance toward families in need.

“There’s an application process that the families go through. It’s just a simple application and everything is very confidential,” Sandra McGeough explained. “We do go through the application (and) we do ask for receipts for the spending of the funds. … We’re very careful, and that’s how we’ve stretched our funds over all these years, along with our fundraising and the support of our Brookings community. It’s just been a wonderful, wonderful experience.”

The foundation’s aid is broad in its reach. “We’ve helped with heart problems, cancer, accident victims, tubes in little ones’ ears. Things have progressed so much medically that we’ve even helped save babies that are still within their mother’s womb,” Sandra McGeough said.

She noted that the foundation also helps with vision issues not related to glasses, since that’s what the Lion’s Club focuses on, and interfaces with other agencies, including the Optimists Club and the Rotary Club.

“Brookings is an amazing community. There’s a lot of wonderful things happening very quietly,” Sandra McGeough said.

‘It’s a very good cause’

Amazing as Brookings is, the foundation has amply added to the community’s reputation – a fact that families helped by the group will attest to.

“The foundation is a wonderful thing. We donate to it as much as possible now to help other families with their kids that are going through something like this,” Jan Struck said. “Eventually, I would like to be able to give back to the Kelly McGeough Foundation by being a part of the organization. I am hoping here in the next few years, once my kids get out of the house, that I can get involved with the foundation to give back in that sense.

“I tell people about the organization, how much it helped us … if I hear about anyone with kids that are in the hospital, I always mention the organization to them.”

Celene Hirrschoff also shared her lasting impressions with the foundation and similar groups.

“The fact that there’s such great organizations right here in Brookings, and that anybody has access to them, and the money stays locally,” she said. “They’ve stayed in touch with my son – they’ve even formed kind of a bond with (Breck) – and so I think it’s really been a blessing to our family to have a picture with Breck and Sandy from the Cubby’s fundraiser last year and her husband. I think we’re blessed by it, and I hope other people are blessed by these types of things in our community.

“I just think it’s a very good cause and (Sandra and Bill) have done a lot of good with the tragedy of what happened to them,” Celene Hirrschoff added, saying that she hopes her family will also be able to help others at a time when they’re in need.

The child that started all of this has been gone almost 40 years now, but his story is still unfolding, and it’s far from being over.

“Kelly’s birthday was in July. He would have been 50. Think of that. We’ll always miss him. He’ll always be part of our family and part of our hearts,” Sandra McGeough said. “He would be so surprised and humbled. He would just say to his Mom and Dad, ‘Can you believe this, Mom and Dad? Wow!’ That was just kind of the little guy he was.”

Foundation fundraisers planned at VFW, Cubby’s in Brookings starting Sunday

Fundraising plays an important role in helping the Kelly McGeough Foundation aid children and their families in Brookings County, and two dates to keep in mind are Aug. 21-22.

• Sunday, Aug. 21, Brookings VFW at 520 Main Ave., from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.: Come on down for your choice of biscuits and gravy, pancakes, scrambled eggs, sausage and beverages for $8. Or get it all for $10.

• Monday, Aug. 22, Cubby’s Sports Bar & Grill at 307 Main Ave., starting at 5 p.m.: Cubby’s is donating proceeds from all food sales that evening to support the foundation’s mission of assisting families whose children are undergoing catastrophic illness or medical situations.

Readers can learn more about the foundation online at its website: kellymcgeoughfoundation.org.

Contact Mondell Keck at mkeck@brookingsregister.com.