Jasper Mohan, 14, is an articulate, engaging teenager and student at Brooks Secondary School who cares about people, politics and philosophy. He loves to perform music. He also has cancer.
Last year Jasper underwent intensive treatment after doctors discovered a brain tumour. He fought through brain surgery, multiple chest surgeries, six rounds of chemotherapy, countless blood transfusions, hair loss, weight loss, fevers, painful infections and a stem cell transplant requiring an entire month in isolation.
Jasper returned to school in the fall of 2012 and things appeared to be back to normal, but almost exactly one year from his diagnosis, a routine MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scan showed the cancer had spread into his brain and spine. Jasper is currently undergoing six-weeks of radiation therapy in Vancouver to beat the cancer once and for all.
“You’ll be pleased to know that Jasper is in great form most of the time,” wrote his mother Barbra Mohan in an update to friends and supporters. “He has a terrific attitude and is embracing all the good times and little simple pleasures. We just have to keep our eyes on him if we ever feel discouraged.”
The Mohan family has received a lot of community support through Jasper’s battles, and now his friends are stepping up again to help out.
We Be Jammin’ For Jasper is a fundraising concert and silent auction being organized from 6:30 to 9 pm on Tuesday, February 5 at Max Cameron Theatre. Organizers have a goal of raising $20,000.
The music will be, “a showcase of some of the most amazing talent of Jasper’s friends,” said Dan Vincent, a friend of the Mohans who is helping organize the benefit. “There’s some incredible acts in every genre of music from punk to Celtic to jazz to folk to indie.”
The event will help Jasper and his family replace lost income and cope with the costs of treatment and frequent travel to and from Vancouver.
“Nothing in Vancouver is inexpensive,” said Vincent. “As friends we’re just trying to help out.”
It will also create a fund to use in case future treatment is expensive or has to be sought elsewhere. Plus, it will help Jasper achieve some of his goals and help the family enjoy some healing and relaxing time together once radiation is finished.
The silent auction is being conducted online ahead of the event and live at the event. Vincent, who is also a prawn fisherman, said that although he isn’t responsible for the silent auction part of the benefit, he and his friends have donated some prawns for the auction. “Best prawns in the world,” he said.
Including the spot prawns, other items up for auction include first nations art, four hours of professional maintenance and carpentry service, two-nights’ stay at Coast Plaza Hotel in Vancouver, a traditional West Coast canoe tour for four people in North Vancouver and an interpretive walk along Willingdon Beach with an Elder of the Tla’amin (Sliammon) First Nation.
Tickets are $10 each and available online or can be purchased at Breakwater Books and Coffee, The HUB 101, River City Coffee, Brooks, or Powell River Academy of Music.
Donations will also be accepted at the event or people are welcome to deposit money into the Jasper In Trust trust fund at Scotiabank. For more information about the event readers can contact Katrin Harry at 604.483.3532.
