LAURIUM – Sixteen-year-old Bradley King and his family may be facing the challenges of a rare cancer diagnosis, but its clear they’re far from alone in the battle.

Today, the “Battle For Bradley Combat Cancer” fundraiser will take place at the Irish Times in Laurium. The event means more than money to help with expensive treatments – it represents an outpouring of support from a community that cares.

Bradley, a junior at Calumet High School lives with his dad, John, stepmom Annie, and his siblings Kayley, Jake and Ayla. Annie King describe him as a “fun-loving kid,” and noted that he’s active in the Junior ROTC program.

Recently, Bradley was diagnosed with synovial sarcoma, a diagnosis that Annie King said only one to three people out of one million face each year. It is a soft-tissue cancer that is invading the bone in his right foot as well, she said.

“Bradley started having foot pain off and on, very seldom, which started to increase in frequency this past fall,” she said. “He loved being in Raiders with JROTC but had to stop as it’s a physical fitness class. His foot would just ache.”

Annie King, who works as a nurse with orthopedic surgeon Dr. John Horan, said she would update Horan on the pain her son was experiencing.

“After trying conservative treatments – like different shoes, inserts, Motrin, cortisone – Dr. Horan ordered an MRI due to the fact that Bradley couldn’t really curl his toes on that foot. That’s how the tumor was discovered,” she said. “Thankfully, we discovered this after eight months of symptoms; most go undiagnosed until after 21 months of symptoms.”

Because of the rarity of the diagnosis, Bradley has to travel to Ann Arbor every two-and-a-half weeks to be treated by a sarcoma specialist at the ?University of Michigan. The treatment, Annie King said, is an aggressive chemotherapy.

“This will continue for the next six months, we are told,” she said. “He will also require surgery at some point to remove the tumor, which may bean amputation to some degree.”

Travel expenses, medications not covered by insurance, and, down the road, a possible prosthesis are all expenses King said the funds raised today will be used for. A GoFundMe page was set up after the diagnosis as well, and quickly raised more than the goal amount of $5,000.

In a true show of community spirit, King said the support the family has received was unsolicited.

“The community response has been overwhelming,” she said. “We did not reach out; they reached out to us before we even had a chance to fully digest what was happening. John and I are so focused on what we need to do next to get (Bradley) better that we never stopped to think about the fact that, yes, we do need help to do this.”

Horan said after setting up the family to begin treatment downstate, he was talking with his wife, Esther, when she came up with the idea of a fundraiser.

“My wife and I were talking, and my wife started saying, ‘We need to have a fundraiser; we need to do this; we need to do that’ and she started scribbling all sorts of stuff on a piece of paper.”

One of the other nurses, Nonie Riutta, brought it up again shortly afterward, Horan said, and the ball got rolling from there.

“It turns out that Nonie is married to Randy, who’s in the band that’s going to be playing. It started snowballing from there. I told my friend Floyd Kaiser, and Floyd and his wife, Theresa (Coleman-Kaiser), jumped on it, and I told my friend Ron Rea,” he said.

Kaiser said he’s largely been working to get donations for the silent auction to be held, and said the response positive.

“It’s actually overwhelming, because almost all of the people I went and asked for donations – whether it was money or something to auction off for the silent auction – they gave me more than what I wanted. It was touching.”

Horan said both sides of the family have strong roots in the area, and their connections helped make getting donations such a huge success.

“(Annie’s local connection) is valuable to me, but now in her time of need, it’s very valuable to her, because, I’ll be honest with you, there isn’t one company that I’ve asked to contribute something that said ‘Yeah, I just don’t want to do that.’ Nobody. Not one.”

The fundraiser will begin at 1 p.m. at the Irish Times in Laurium, and will go until 6 p.m. A spaghetti dinner will be served for $12.

There will be entertainment as well. Marshall Law will play from 2:30 p.m. to 5 p.m., Horan said, and the silent auction will be held. Kaiser said one of the bigger prizes up for auction is a half-day fishing trip for two people with professional fisherman Mark Martin. Horan said some of the other prizes include gift card bundles, and golf at the Calumet Golf Course.

According to the event’s Facebook page, Battle for Bradley T-shirts and bracelets will be available for purchase as well.

Horan said turnout is expected to be high. As of Friday night, 205 guests had RSVP’d on the Facebook page for the event.

“From all indications, there’s probably going to be more people there than we can handle – and that’s a good problem,” Horan said.

“Everybody wants to be involved.”

A staff member from Representative Scott Dianda’s office said he expected Dianda to make an appearance at the event as well.

Annie King said the family is touched by the outpouring of support, and thanked everyone who has supported the family.

“With out the love, support, prayers of our community, we just don’t know how we’d get through,” she said. “Just when another challenge jumps up something good happens to help us through it. We feel very blessed to have such wonderful people in our lives.”

“They say God doesn’t give you more than you can handle, so when the load is heavy, he makes sure we have an army to carry it all.”

For more information, visit the Battle for Bradley Facebook event page, www.facebook.com/events/1439193083061447.