Rock N' Wobble

On Wednesday November 24th, the Rock N’ Wobble event will be taking place at Grand Central located in Downtown Miami with the proceeds of the event benefiting Take Hope. We hope to see you here!

Click here for advance tickets and don’t forget to stay tuned to all our upcoming events.

Take a second to click on the link and help Take Hope receive a $50,000 that will go directly to those who cannot afford cancer treatment. It’s easy to do:

1. Click this link: http://www.refresheverything.com/takehope
2. Simple registration with either your Facebook account or email address
3. Vote for Take Hope

We have until March 31 to make it to the top 10, and you can vote once a day!

Thank you for all your support.

There’s only one thing strong enough to keep Cesar Odio off the basketball court: Cancer. “You know I lost like 50 pounds, I was missing hair and I was going through a tough battle but my goal was always to come back and coach,” Odio said yesterday.

Two years ago, Barry University’s head basketball coach was diagnosed with leukemia. The weight loss and the chemo were so bad it forced him to sit out all of last season. “There was times there where I thought I wouldn’t be coaching ever again,” Odio said, “there was times I thought I would never be around.” Barry Basketball Coach Beating Cancer But Odio beat the odds and returned to his team at the start of this season. “When that happened, it hurt so bad,” said Bryan Chiverton, a senior on the Barry basketball team. “So we all kind of rallied together and said we’re gonna do something special for him.”

Chiverton said Odio is like a father to him. And even though Odio never used cancer to motivate the team, they did. “When we have meetings with just the team, we’ll talk about what we need to do and we always remind each other that we’re doing this for Coach Odio,” he said.
So far, so good. This weekend, Barry will play in the NCAA Division II National Championship Tournament. “For this season to turn out the way it did, it’s been almost magical,” Odio said.

Odio’s leukemia is in remission, so he still takes pills daily and goes to the doctor for treatment every four weeks. But on the court, he’s the same high-energy coach he used to be. Well, almost.

“He used to get really fired up, but now sometimes he’s more laid back,” said Chiverton. “He’ll say what he has to say, you can still see that he wants to, because he loves basketball more than anybody I’ve ever met.” Odio constantly tells his team to play every play like it’s their last. And now, he lives that way too. “Every day I wake up, I tell you I open up my eyes and I just say ‘Thank you,’” Odio said.

Two South Florida doctors knew their time in Haiti would be challenging, but neither of them thought they’d be involved in one of the great miracles to come out of the earthquake devastation.

Drs. David Farcy and Seth Marquit decided to take part in an independent mission to Port-au-Prince in the wake of the earthquake, they assumed they’d be stuck in a hospital, tending to the injured.

My intent was to be in a clinic,” Farcy recalled yesterday, fresh off his return from the small island nation.

No such luck. As Farcy and Marquit were walking the grounds of their medical compound this past Friday, they came across a Haitian man begging for someone to help him.

“We don’t know where we’re going and I’m thinking, ‘Is this a smart idea, are we safe?’” Marquit said.The good doctors decided to help, and not knowing the man or where they were headed, the two hitched a ride with the man in the back of a truck.

A short time later, the truck arrived at the scene of a collapsed three-story building, now just another pile of rubble in a city full of them.

A crowd of about 50 people had gathered around the building, and though it had been nearly 10 days since the quake hit, a woman was claiming her son was still alive under the concrete.

“The mother of the patient was there saying ‘I heard my son,’ that resonated into my mind,” Farcy said. “I shouted in French, I said, ‘Is there anybody here’ in French, and he says ‘Please help me, please help me.’”

As a trained New York City paramedic who had served in search and rescue missions with the U.S. military, Farcy knew the chances of finding the man, who had been without food or water for several days, were unbelievable.

Yet there he was.

“Four to five feet straight in front of me and about five to six feet down,” Farcy said.

Digging through the darkness and debris with his bare hands, Farcy was able to create a small hole where he thought the man might be.

“Through the rubble and through the metal stick, I was able to put my body and my head all the way up to here, and I couldn’t see anything,” Farcy said.

Farcy had to prove to nearby Israeli military members that a man could still be alive under the building, so he took a quick photo.

The doctor couldn’t believe what he saw when he looked at the pic.

“It blew me away that this person not only was, if you look at the image, is looking at me, but it’s really his hand and his hand was symbolizing the hand of help, he needs help,” said Farcy.

As the Israelis went to get their jaws of life to tray to free the man, Farcy and Marquit went to work trying to hydrate the 22-year-old survivor who was still unreachable and several feet away.

“We were able to find a broomstick and then took the surgical, the IV tubing, open the end of it and taped it onto the end,” Marquit said.

After four hours of cutting and digging, the man was finally freed and reunited with his mother.

It was an emotional moment for Farcy.

“The most touching moment of this is, he looked at me and he says, ‘You’re my angel, and I don’t have words for you.’”

SoBe socialites gathered recently to raise money for South Florida families who are unable to afford cancer treatment for loved ones. Set at the Setai South Beach, Take Hope Against Cancer kicked off its inaugural celebration with a sexy soiree that attracted models and celebrities.

The night included music, cocktails and a runway preview of fashion label ALEXIS courtesy of globally emerging designer and Miami native Alexis Barbara. In attendance were foundation co-founders Cristina Bustamante, Dr. David Farcy, Jason Odio, internationally acclaimed fashion designer Barbara, developer Oscar Barbara, Bimini Bay owner Alejandro Capo, Heat Player Shavlik Randolph, Jason and Chris Taiplin, Angel Joseph Souto of Café Bustello and state Rep. Ani-Tere Flores.

The event has raised more than $23,000 to date and donations are continuing to come in. The foundation aims to raise optimism as well as awareness for the many cancer-afflicted families in South Florida facing financial difficulty. Proceeds benefit low-income cancer patients and their families by helping to provide money for treatments. For more visit www.takehope.org.