ATHOL — Rain or shine, there was no stopping the Athol and Orange communities from coming out on Saturday to support one of their own.
“It’s pouring, and everyone still came out,” said Donna Lajoie. “It shows me we live in an awesome area.”
On Saturday, friends of Victoria “Torey” Johnson and her mother, Julie Stanley, came together for the beginning of a two-day tag sale at the home of Rachael Chamberlain-Parker, who works at the Athol Community Elementary School where Stanley serves as assistant principal. The sale was organized as a benefit for Johnson, 26, who recently learned that the rare form of brain cancer she survived as a young teenager had returned.
The sale, which was scheduled for 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, was organized by three of Johnson’s friends — Samantha Parker, Kaylee Vitols and Shaunna Woessner — the same three who, 12 years ago, organized a bake sale and crafted purple ribbons to raise money for their friend when she was first diagnosed with cancer.
“She’s just the type of girl who’ll give you the sweater off her back,” said Parker.
All proceeds from the tag sales on Saturday and Sunday will go toward anything the family needs, Woessner and Parker explained, including travel expenses for the family’s drives between Athol and Boston, where Johnson was scheduled to begin chemotherapy on Aug. 24.
“They shouldn’t have to worry about that,” Woessner said.
More than a hundred items were donated for a raffle at the tag sale, including more than $450 worth of wood donated by a family friend, Tommy Doane, which organizers planned to raffle off. Several tents around the yard covered tables with items donated from people throughout the community
“I didn’t go to the local businesses, but they all donated,” said Chamberlain-Parker.
As the rain poured down Saturday morning, vehicles lined the road and members of the community filed in — and those who couldn’t make it, Chamberlain-Parker said, sent donations electronically through Venmo.
“This community never ceases to amaze me in supporting their own,” said Shannon Cleveland, who serves as principal at Athol Community Elementary. “It’s humbling.”
To many at the tag sale, including Cleveland, it was no surprise to see such an outpouring of support. In fact, the generosity of the community simply mirrored the kind of people they know Johnson and Stanley to be.
Lajoie, who went to high school with Stanley, said in 2010 her daughter was also diagnosed with a brain tumor. Her daughter, Hannah, was a few years younger than Johnson at the time. One day at the hospital with Hannah, Lajoie was told she had a visitor waiting for her out front.
“There was Julie, holding a plastic bag,” Lajoie recalled. “‘She said, ‘These are the things you’ll need,’ … She had just gone through it with Torey.”
The community, like it has for Johnson, rallied together for Hannah, she said.
So when she heard Johnson’s cancer had returned, Lajoie said “it struck a chord.”
“I wanted to pay it forward,” she said. “That’s just the kind of person Julie is, and that explains why there’s such a turnout.”
A fundraiser at The Booth Salon, owned by Torey Johnson’s stepfather, Jim Stanley, at 4 West Main St. in Orange, is slated for Sept. 13 from noon to 5 p.m. Anyone who donates $5 or more will receive a free spray tan (value: $25) at The Booth Salon.
Mary Byrne can be reached at mbyrne@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 263. Twitter: @MaryEByrne