When Sandy Henry’s 12-year-old son was diagnosed with a rare form of pediatric cancer, her union, colleagues, and administration rallied behind her. As the veteran kindergarten teacher turned her attention to her son’s care and recovery, they ensured not only that her students were cared for but that her family and others facing similar ordeals were supported as well.
Henry herself has played a key role in giving back by bringing a special fundraiser to schools in Darien, where she teaches, and in Fairfield, where she lives.
A fundraiser for the Tommy Fund for Childhood Cancer, Hats for Hope provides key financial and emotional support for those battling pediatric cancer and gives their classmates a way to honor and celebrate their peers. Students and faculty donate a dollar or more to wear fun hats to school, and the proceeds help patients and families at the Tommy Fund Pediatric Hematology and Oncology Center, Smilow Cancer Hospital, and Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital. The fund not only provides crucial dollars for treatment and family support but also cancer research and aftercare.
Over 100 schools across the state participated in Hats for Hope last year, and Henry is one of several Connecticut educators involved in the cause. Meet her and three other educators who shared their deeply personal stories with us.
Camryn’s Comeback
Guilford math teacher Courtney Summa-Barbour is so grateful for the help she received from the Tommy Fund that she’s been paying it forward ever since.
It started when her younger daughter, Camryn, was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
“We felt silly bringing her to the pediatrician for being overly tired,” Summa-Barbour says. “Both she and her older sister, Brinley, had been healthy throughout their early years. But Cam was sleeping through playdates. Her skin started to look yellow. When we found out almost a week later that she was battling cancer, it came as a complete shock. We put our heads down and began to fight. She was in port surgery only hours later, and she and I spent over a week apart from her sister and dad. I think that’s a big part of the diagnosis people forget—the time that families are forced to spend apart, and the guilt and heartache parents feel having to choose which child needs them most when they can’t all be together.”
Camryn’s diagnosis came in 2023, just before her sixth birthday, in May. Since then, she has undergone two-and-a-half years of active treatment and recently rang the bell signifying the end of her treatment. She’ll continue to be monitored for the next five years.
In the hospital, Summa-Barbour was given the names of organizations that could offer financial assistance. The Tommy Fund was one of them.
“We realized very early on that our relationship with the Tommy Fund would not only be about financial assistance—although they have given us that without shame or judgment—but it’s honestly about connection, support, and genuine love,” she says. “The folks at the Tommy Fund exude the kind of care that has made all the difference in our lives. The way they effortlessly support families when they need it most goes above and beyond. They feel like family to us.”
For the last two school years, Summa-Barbour has raised funds for and awareness of pediatric cancer throughout Guilford Public Schools. It started at both Baldwin Middle School, where she teaches and her daughter Brinley (11) is a student, as well as at Guilford Lakes Elementary, the school Camryn (8) attends. Her efforts expanded to Guilford’s high school, two middle schools, and all four elementary schools, bringing in the entire district.
Last school year, Guilford Public Schools raised a combined $12,192, and Calvin Leete Elementary notched the top fundraising award, earning them a visit from members of UConn men’s basketball at a schoolwide assembly.
“I got involved with Hats for Hope as a way to contribute to this incredible organization,” says Summa-Barbour. “I was overwhelmed with joy when my district got on board, and I can’t wait to be involved with Hats for Hope again this year!”
Welcome Back, Tucker
Sandy Henry has taught kindergarten at Darien’s Ox Ridge Elementary School for 24 years. Two years ago, her son Tucker, then an eighth-grader, began experiencing pain in his knee while playing travel soccer.
“We gave him ibuprofen, and he did stretches, but nothing worked,” Henry recalls. “For weeks, he limped through his games until we took him to an orthopedic specialist.”
An X-ray showed a large, dark oval on his tibia, just above the growth plate.
“I’ll never forget that image,” Henry says. A biopsy was ordered at Yale, after which Henry and her husband, Scott, received the devastating news: Tucker had a rare form of childhood cancer, osteosarcoma.
“We need to walk you across the street to the Smilow Center’s Tommy Fund Clinic,” the family was told. Doctors prepared them for what the next year would look like, and treatment started right away.
“I still have the text I sent to Darien Public Schools,” Henry says. “I wrote, ‘It’s cancer. I don’t know what to do.’”
Treatment included an intensive chemotherapy regimen that was mostly inpatient, surgeries to replace six inches of bone with donor bone, and physical therapy to enable Tucker to walk. There were complications along the way, and Tucker—and his teacher mom—would miss an entire year of school.
“We would have to check in to the hospital on a Monday, and if we were lucky, we would leave on Thursday and be back again the following Monday,” Henry explains. “This was my 22nd year teaching, and I wondered what I was going to do about my job and my students. Of course, I clued in my union rep and asked, ‘How am I going to do this?’ He reassured me I could take the time I needed, and everyone was amazing. My administration was awesome, and my kindergarten team took over my lesson plans.”
Critically, Henry was able to keep her employee health insurance. Even when hospital invoices reached $70,000 per week, the family’s responsibility was zero.
Tucker remained in the hospital for nine months, which became Henry’s home away from home. Fortunately, his cancer was caught before it could metastasize and enter his lungs. Today, Tucker is a sophomore at Fairfield Warde High School, where his older brother, Boone, is preparing to graduate and where student teams under the guidance of business teacher Anna Moses have competed to raise money for Hats for Hope. Boone created a video chronicling their efforts, and Tucker’s younger sister, Tilley, led a similar initiative at Tomlinson Middle School, as did Sandy Henry and her Darien colleagues.
“Schools everywhere have silly hat days,” she explains. “Typically at our school it was for Dr. Seuss’s birthday. As I passed through the clinic for Tucker’s treatments, I’d see a flyer for Hats for Hope, and I thought, why not? I have a kindergarten colleague who’s passionate about cancer care, and we put the Hats for Hope idea out to administration. The year I was in the hospital with Tucker, my colleague organized the fundraiser with helpers and got four Darien elementary schools involved.”
That year on Hat Day, Sandy and Tucker—on crutches, bald, and sporting a Tommy Fund hat—visited Darien schools.
“All the kids rooted for him,” Henry says. “’Go, Tucker!’ they cheered.”
Last year, when Henry returned to her classroom, she took over Hats for Hope with her colleague, involving all five Darien elementary schools.
“Ox Ridge raised the third-highest dollar amount in the state, and another Darien school was in the state’s top ten,” she says. The combined impact of Darien and Fairfield schools for the 2024-2025 school year was $11,462. Henry, who grew up in Darien and went to the same elementary school where she now teaches, says, “I’m so proud of how Darien supported me and rallied for Hats for Hope.”
For the Henrys, Tommy Fund support included education and child life activities in the hospital, tutors and advocates for specific accommodations for Tucker’s education, visits from pilots, athletes, and other special guests, holiday parties, and gatherings for cancer survivors and those who are bereaved.
“Even though we didn’t have to take them up on it, the fund also offered to cover excess costs for Tucker’s physical therapy,” Henry says. “They provide grocery and gas cards and big bins of food for families who need them. One time, in the midst of everything, someone gave me a 15-minute massage. I hadn’t been taking care of myself, and in that moment I broke down and cried.”
Coming Together for Jack, Evan, and Greyson
Educators and students at Shelton Public Schools are some of the biggest champions for those in need, and Perry Hill Upper Elementary sixth-grade teacher and Community Outreach Committee member Erin Rizzo is a key part of that work.
“Our school’s Community Outreach Committee hosts a variety of events throughout the year, and there’s a group of us who help out,” says Rizzo. “The events are very student-driven—kindness cards for the senior center, the Souper-Bowl canned soup drive, collections for the animal shelter, and activities of that nature. Since our school community has had students and staff family members who’ve faced challenges, my colleagues were very open to doing a bigger fundraiser, such as Hats for Hope. Our school very easily and naturally comes together to support each other and our students.”
Hats for Hope holds a special place for Rizzo, whose 14-year-old son, Jack, is in remission from acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
“Jack was diagnosed in March 2014, just three weeks before his third birthday,” Rizzo says. “Our daughter, Molly, was only nine months old at the time. Jack was treated for the next three years, until July 2017, when he got to ring the bell in the pediatric oncology clinic. Throughout that time, we spent many days at the hospital, and we fully reaped the benefit of the Tommy Fund through their generosity with programs for the kids in the hospital, both inpatient and out. They host a survivors’ picnic each year and a holiday party for staff and families to celebrate outside of a clinical setting.”
Today, Jack, a high school freshman, plays football and leads a full and active life.
One of Rizzo’s former students, Evan, now 15, is a survivor of Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Rizzo and Evan’s mother spoke frequently about their shared experiences, and together they helped raise $3,528 last school year through Hats for Hope.
“She really spearheaded the fundraising at the intermediate school and other schools that joined us,” Rizzo says.
Rizzo’s initial interest in hosting Hats for Hope started with her friend Patti, a teacher at North Branford High School whose son Nicolas, a pediatric cancer survivor, has been a driving force in fundraising for the last few years.
“Our families have been very close since before our kids were born, and our sons share the same oncologist, who’s very active with the Tommy Fund,” she says.
To start off the 2025-2026 year, Shelton Public Schools expanded its fundraising goals by honoring the memory of 12-year-old Seymour student Greyson Luyando, who passed away in May 2025 after a courageous battle with pediatric cancer.
His mother, Booth Hill Elementary teacher Courtney Luyando, ran for Team Tommy Fund in this year’s Eversource Hartford Marathon and Half Marathon, and the entire Shelton school community came together for Hats for Hope Day on October 1, the initial date of Greyson’s diagnosis.
Remembering Otto
Leigh Funderburk is in her 24th year of teaching special education at Region 15’s Middlebury Elementary School.
“We’re very supportive of one another, in good times and bad,” she says of her teacher community.
In 2018, her then 13-year-old son, Otto, began feeling unwell. A competitive swimmer and avid baseball player, he was involved in sports year-round. A center fielder and pitcher in Pomperaug’s fall and spring baseball leagues, he was nicknamed “O-Bomb” for crushing the ball in homeruns. He also enjoyed snowboarding, soccer, and golf.
“This is where he excelled,” his mother says.
Thinking his unusual symptoms might point to Lyme disease, his parents took him to see a doctor. Bloodwork revealed acute myeloid leukemia.
“Otto spent 45 days in the hospital getting treatment,” Funderburk recalls. “He was so brave and always in good spirits. While he did well with chemo, and we thought he was in the clear, the following month it came back in a different form. Then he developed a life-threatening fungal infection.”
Seven months later, in December, Otto passed away.
Funderburk’s family coordinates a charitable Wiffle ball tournament and student-athlete scholarship in Otto’s memory, and since 2019, they’ve participated in the Closer to Free ride for Team Tommy Fund, to support pediatric cancer research.
“It feels really good giving back, because they offered so much medical and emotional support when we needed it,” she says, recalling Tommy Fund outpatient services through Yale, volunteers who would play games and engage in other fun activities with kids, and child life specialists who explained complicated issues and procedures.
“My benefits through school were great, and we didn’t require financial assistance, but many families may not have the best health insurance, so I know the Tommy Fund is a huge help.”
In 2023, Funderburk approached the fund about hosting a monthlong Hats for Hope campaign at her school.
“I talked to my principal in February and thought we could run Hats for Hope during March Madness, since I’m a huge college basketball fan,” she explains. “Every Wednesday in March we’d have a different theme—crazy hat, cowboy hat, big hat, party hat, sports hat—and each week, the homeroom that raised the most would get extra recess time. When I walked into school, I’d have a huge board showing the progress of every class, which was really motivating.”
She adds, “Sometimes kids would leave notes with their pledges or contribute money they saved up themselves, and I was blown away at the amount they raised.”
Her efforts led Middlebury Elementary School to win the top fundraising school prize that school year and culminated with a visit from four members of the UConn men’s championship basketball team.
“When they walked into the building, I was taken aback at how tall they were!” she recalls. “I’m used to being around people who are six feet tall, but some of these athletes were closer to seven. We did a Q&A, and every class got to do a full-class picture with the players. They were the nicest guys, and so good with our students. I still remember being at the podium, when 6’10” center Tarris Reed, Jr., gently put an elbow on my head!”
Other visiting UConn players were Aidan Mahaney, Hassan Diarra, and Jaylin Stewart.
Funderburk and her school continued their efforts in 2024-2025, placing second in the state with a contribution of $5,731 toward the fight against pediatric cancer in Connecticut.
While Funderburk and her husband, Mark, make new memories with daughters Tess (pursuing a degree in engineering) and Lulu, an eighth-grader, they continue to honor Otto’s memory in ways that help other young people in their community and beyond.
You Can Help
The Tommy Fund was named for a four-year-old with acute leukemia whose family sought community support during his treatment. More than 70 years ago, New Britain firefighters and other community members raised public awareness and funds for Tommy and his family. Since then, the fund has helped thousands of families with medical and palliative care, direct financial assistance with household expenses, holiday and food drives, social gatherings, and more. Schools are a major contributor to the Tommy Fund through its Hats for Hope program. Learn more.
