Concerts on two nights, BBQ Cookoff, games, Car Show, Mutton Bustin, Cornhole Tournament, and More at Rock’n C Arena
West McCauley beat cancer. The spunky 5-yearold from Huffman was diagnosed with bilateral retinoblastoma at 10 months old, a rare form of eye cancer, in January of 2020 and five years later, he’s still free and clear of cancer. On Friday and Saturday, his parents and the community will join for a Kids Kicking Cancer event to raise money for other children with cancer at the Crosby Rodeo and Fair Rockin’ C Arena.
The diagnosis led to a tearful letter penned by his father Steven to his son on Facebook that garnered more than 20,000 comments in a few days. It also led them to a doctor in New York, a specialist, and hope that they could save his eye.
“The left eye was too far gone and so they removed it,” his dad said, and West endured three rounds of chemo.
One year later, the cancer returned in the right eye and warranted another trip to New York. West lost that fight and is legally blind, but his dad says he is in the best of spirits.
“I’m glad school started back because I work from home,” he said. “My summer has been filled listening to episodes of Peppa Pig and fire sirens,” his dad grinned.
Three years after the cancer treatment, West is a little dude singing, playing, and doing normal things.
“We have to guide him around a bit and he’s a little interdependent, and unfortunately, that’s the way he’ll be the rest of his life. He’s still inspiring,” Steven said.
He loves baseball and the neighborhood kids play beeper ball with him.
McCauley said he’s a full-fledged kindergartener this year and rides the bus to school.
During those early years, through the pandemic, one organization kept reaching out to the McCauley family.
“Throughout that journey, I knew we had so much help from organizations and people. I wanted to pay it back or pay it forward. Addi’s Faith Foundation was relentless. They never stopped calling us, reaching out, providing help, monetarily, spiritually, and emotionally for us,” he said.
He and his wife, Brooke, got to work organizing a fundraiser and created Kids Kicking Cancer. Just novices that first year at fundraising, they were able to hit an incredible $117,000.
In their third year, they are hoping to continue to grow that amount and reach out to other kids who have cancer in their eyes.
“We were back and forth working with an ocularist to get him fitted with prosthetic eyes,” his dad said. The cost was between $4,000 and $5,000 each, but he felt lucky to have insurance that helped him pay for them.
“Some insurances do not pay for kids’ eyes, and we were just taken back. What happens? They don’t get an eye, and they go around with a clear plastic piece in their eye that does not look like an eye. It just looks like a big, old clear contact, and you can see the tissue of the eye where the implant is,” he said. “It’s not aesthetically pleasing especially for a kid that has to go to school and look like that.”
McCauley said they pivoted to start paying for prosthetic eyes for kids.
“We reached out to our own ocularist, he was excited about it and told us if we were going to do that, he would knock off 40 percent of the bill,” McCauley said.
The office began screening patients for financial consideration and their first patient to qualify was a kid from Guatemala.
“He had been fitted for an eye when he was five years old in Guatemala, but at 14, he still had the same eye which didn’t fit. Having to go to a public school and be around friends and looking different, it wasn’t fun for him, so we helped him out,” Mc- Cauley said.
They have since discovered that they weren’t the only organization helping kids with prosthetic eyes.
“We were the only one in Houston, in Texas, and in the U.S.!” he said.
Now doctors are seeking them out and they have assisted 21 kids in the last couple of years.
The Crosby Fair and Rodeo grounds will be turned into a fundraising machine for the kids with a light schedule on Friday night, Aug. 23 (no cover charge) with cornhole tournament beginning at 6:30, barbecue Calcutta at 7 p.m. and a concert at 8 p.m.
Aug. 24, Saturday at 10 a.m. is the kids barbecue cookoff, cornhole tournament at 10:30 a.m., a Show-N-Shine Car Show at noon, Mutton bustin’ and Hill Country Jane at 4 p.m., an awards presentation at 5 p.m., live auction at 5:30 p.m., and concert at 7 p.m. with Wayne Toups. The cover charge for Saturday events is $20 for adults, $10 for kids or free kid admission with new toy (valued at $10), and kids 5 and under get in for free.
Join Warriors for West and support Kids Kicking Cancer at 800 Church St., Crosby, TX 77532.
For more information on the fundraiser,
visit https://addisfaith.org/kidskickingcancer.