Onset Halloween Party in Honor of Family Members Lost to Cancer

Most of us want to have more fun, but it seems it's not as easy as it used to be. Tina Pittsley's Halloween Bash, a good times party, is ready, willing and able. The event will happen October 9 at the VFW in Onset, and all the proceeds go to The Jimmy Fund and families affected by cancer.

"If you're paying to go to an entertaining and enjoyable Halloween party, you might as well pay for one that's going to give all the money to people who are sick with cancer and can really use the help. That's the way I look at it," explained Pittsley, a Wareham native who lost much of her family to cancer.

"I don't have much family left. I grew up seeing my family suffer the ill effects of cancer," she said. "But we can take the horrible results cancer can hand us, and make good things happen."

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Since the fifth grade, Pittsley has seen cancer devastate her family, starting with her mother. While Pittsley was in high school, she saw her brother Joe, to whom this benefit is dedicated, experiencing convulsions on the classroom floor, only to find out that he had a serious brain tumor at age 15. He passed away before turning 21.

"I do this fundraiser so people can get together, dress up in their Halloween costumes and just go out for the night, have fun and do a good turn, paying it forward," Pittsley said. "One of our big raffle items comes from a friend of my late brother Joe, who donated a three-night stay in the White Mountains in Camden, New Hampshire, with four bedrooms that sleeps 10 to 12, in a beautiful vacation home, complete with four passes to Waterville Valley and all the festivities there."

That's just one of the many prizes that will be raffled off.

Pittsley hasn't come away from all of the hardship of her life without learning a lesson or two.

"Yes, you go through a lot of suffering and pain, but it's made me stronger, and it's helped open my eyes to see and appreciate the tiny, positive things, deeper, and I value life so much more," she said.

People like Tina Pittsley show us that there can be a bright side to even our darkest troubles.