Blowout birthday bash celebrates 12-year-old battling brain cancer
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) — It started out as a small work party and turned out to be a community-wide drive-by birthday event celebrating the life of 12-year-old Levi McConnell.
“Levi’s supporters started coming out in droves,” said Levi’s father Ryan McConnell. “People that have never met him just heard his story.”
Levi was recently diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer known as Diffuse Midline Glioma. His prognosis isn’t promising. Family friend Aasta Shaw says you would never know that by his personality.
“For everyone that knows Levi, they know that he is just the most special little boy,” Shaw said. “He’s so loving and so caring and he’s always thinking about everyone else instead of himself. And it was just such a beautiful thing to see everyone focused on him today.”
The drive-by birthday party left a lasting impression on Levi’s mother Kathleen McConnell.
“We’re both Air Force active duty,” she said. “We don’t have any family here in Colorado. But that didn’t matter, all a sudden our family just grew exponentially.”
Food trucks from the event are donating proceeds to the family to fund a trip to Seattle, where Levi plans to undergo a clinical trial medication. A family friend of the McConnell's is raising funds for the family on GoFundMe.
