HEBRON — The community is being asked to lace up their sneakers and “Fight Like A Mother” to help a local young mother of two who is fighting cancer.

Amy Richard, a 41-year old non-smoker who works as a nurse at the Central Maine Community Hospital with cancer patients, was diagnosed in February with stage IV lung cancer.

Amy Richard and her daughter Olivia

On Sunday, May 6, beginning at 10 a.m. the Hebron Station School, where Amy’s six-year-old daughter Olivia attends school, will host the 3rd annual Hebron Hawk 5K Trail Run & Raffle to help Richard offset medical and other expenses the family may incur during her treatment, including doctors’ visits to Boston and time that Amy can not work.

This is the third Hawk Run fundraising event sponsored by the Hebron Station school. The last two year’s, the proceeds raised went toward paying for student field trips.

The fund raiser is one of many that family and friends have organized, already raising thousands of dollars, to help the financial needs of Amy and her husband Chris and children Olivia and two-year-old son Owen.

“We are overwhelmed with gratitude for the support Amy has received from the community,” Amy’s sister Lori Ventimiglia told the Advertiser Democrat. “Although this has been such a difficult time for Amy and our family, our hearts are full knowing what great people we are surrounded by and how much Amy is loved.

School officials say they hope to help the family financially and raise awareness for Adenocarcinoma, a type of cancer that can occur in many different places in the body including the lungs.

Ventimiglia said in a fundraiser she organized on the “You Caring” fundraising site (https://www.youcaring.com/amyrichard-1081742) that the family believed Amy had pneumonia when she underwent surgery to remove fluid from her lungs in February. It was then that doctors discovered it was not pneumonia, but Adenocarcinoma that had spread to the outer lining of her lungs.

School officials at the Hebron Station School said they not only need people to participate in the 5K, but they are also looking for financial donations and items for the raffle.

Raffle items that have been donated already, or could be, include gift cards, a fishing pole, sports apparel, lawn care, massage, haircut, oil change yard work, massage, haircut, oil change and so forth.

To register for the race, please go to www.Active.com

For more information or to donate please contact: Hebron Station School @ 207-966-3323 or i.cavers@msad17.org 884 Station RD. Hebron ME 04238.

ldixon@submediagroup.net