On November 14, 2025 one of our newer club members, Jessica Hill, gave us an insight into the extraordinary experiences of herself and her family. Their story is both heartbreaking and inspiring.
Jessica explained how she and her husband Dave, and the older of two teenage daughters, Alyssa, had lost their precious youngest member of the family, Addy, to a rare and aggressive form of cancer that took Addy's life some 9 months after diagnosis, and just two days after her 14th birthday in July 2022. The loss was devastating to Addy's immediate and extended family that included Addy's friends, school basketball coach and team mates in Elora.
During her treatment at Sick Kids, Addy had begged her family to start fundraising for research into her kind of cancer, to help kids like herself in the future. As Jessica said, “This was a kid with incredible Addy-tude and we couldn't say no.” So ‘Team Addy’ was launched and together with Addy's former basketball family, they have since fundraised almost $841,000 towards angiosarcoma research at Sick Kids, enabling Addy's oncologist to raise an additional five million dollars in grants.
After Addy's passing, Jessica took some time away from her former career of being a dental hygienest, and later found her way to the Children's Wish Fund of Guelph and Wellington where she joined their board … wishing that she had known about this organization during her own family's struggles. She wanted other struggling families to receive help from the Children's Wish Fund and she was later asked to consider becoming the Executive Director of the charity, which she did - a role she still holds. No person could be more empathic to families than someone like Jessica with the experience of what it is truly like to face a child's extreme medical hardships.
Jessica's purpose in life today is to continue all her current work in memory of Addy, and for families like hers, and she credits her resilience to “Turning pain into purpose, and still standing up thanks to my family holding me up”.
Take a look at these websites to learn more, and the next time you read about a ‘Team Addy’ event coming up, or spot someone wearing a ‘Team Addy’ sweater, you'll know what it's about and why you should consider supporting it.
TEAM ADDY: https://www.teamaddy.ca/
CRYSTAL BALL MEMORIAL: https://www.teamaddy.ca/addys-story/precision-child-health
DINI PETTY INTERVIEW WITH JESSICA: https://vimeo.com/1130282324?fl=pl&fe=sh
