It always raises spirits when communities get together for a good cause — like raising over $10,000 for a Nakusp native who’d been diagnosed with breast cancer in May.

Megan Marcolli, who was born and raised and Nakusp and has resided in the village her whole life, was surprised to find out of her diagnosis earlier this year as she’d completed a full physical just a month before, with doctors saying she was fit, healthy, and would live for many years. But her outlook changed drastically after she went through with her first mammogram.

“I kicked myself and thought, if I’d gone for a mammogram sooner, maybe I would’ve caught it earlier,” says Megan. “But they say they have no way of knowing. It could’ve been there six months ago, could’ve been five years ago. Mine was a Grade 3, which is not great. I had two tumours in the one breast.”

With her husband, Bill, being a forestry worker and having to work out of town to support the family, Megan expected hard-times were coming as the extra expenses of her travelling to Vernon every three weeks for chemotherapy and overnight stays in hospitals were compiling. She’s already had a mastectomy of the one breast, and further surgeries are expected.

“It’s been tough because none of us has really experienced it,” says Megan. “I have no history of it anywhere in my family, so it’s kind of a first-time thing for us, and it’s one of those things, until you go through it yourself, it’s hard to imagine. You think you understand what people go through, but until you’re in those shoes ...”

With friends and family supporting her, Megan has undergone a lot of stress and hardship in the last six months. Recently a fundraiser was held for her, organized by her friend, Pattie Adam, her daughters Nicole and Kaitlyn and her daughters friend Jennifer Scott.

“She was concerned and quite frustrated that there wasn’t things more readily available and expressed that to me,” says Adam. “That night, it was just bugging me. I can’t imagine what financial situation I would be in if that happened to me.”

That night, Adam thought up the idea of doing a Shearing the Flock fundraiser, where she would cut her hair off for pledges, and after meeting with Megan’s daughters and Scott, the idea ballooned into a full-fledge fundraiser.

“We did up 30 envelopes with pledge forms on them,” says Adam. “(We) thought it was way too many and I was scrambling at the last day to get more. It just escalated.”

Adam says the amount of people who just donated five or ten dollars here and there was amazing, and at the fundraiser itself, which took place on Oct. 3 at NSS, there were two people who offered to shave off their hair, moustaches and beards — so a hat was passed around and on the spot, $200 was raised between the two. Adam says Megan was the first one to the school before the fundraiser and the last to leave.

“It didn’t get emotional until the end, when the majority of the people had gone and you sort of sit back and reflect how much money you raised for somebody,” says Adam. “I had pledges from as far away as Edmonton.”

During the whole process, Megan has been absolutely humbled by the experience, but as she says, something like this wouldn’t have happened in a larger city.

“I was quite overwhelmed by the support of the people that showed up to watch the whole thing. It’s pretty humbling, that’s for sure,” says Megan. “People can say what they want about a small town, but when it comes to something like that, it’s the best place to be as far as I’m concerned. I’ll be forever grateful to everybody.”

Being used to giving, instead of receiving, Megan says she cannot thank enough the people who’d donated, but now with her eyes open as to what life can throw at you, she’s educated and bringing that education to the table.

“I’ll be 45 this year and had never gone for a mammogram,” she says. “I’m telling all my friends not to be a boob about it and go get one done.”