A Cop's Fighting Spirit Helps Kids With Cancer
People HEROES AMONG US
James Seneca, 45
Aurora, Colo.
Two weeks after entering the police academy in Buffalo, N.Y., 26-year-old James Seneca was diagnosed with leukemia. Dropping 55 pounds during a grueling year of chemo, "at one point I said, 'I can't take this anymore,'" he recalls. "But my family and friends said, 'You can't give up.'"
Twenty years later, Seneca -- now a recruiter on the Aurora, Colo., force -- helps others battle back. In April 2003, he launched Cops Fighting Cancer, a nonprofit that holds boxing matches and other fundraisers for families facing the disease. So far he and 100 police and civilian volunteers have raised $250,000 for 56 families. Says Graham Dunne of the Aurora Police Academy: "Jim's passion in life is to help people."
Initially Seneca set out to help fellow cops stricken with cancer - but only one cop showed up to his first meeting. Soon after, he read a story about Brianna Roberts, a 3-year-old girl with rhabdomyosarcoma -- a soft-tissue cancer -- whose uterus had to be removed. "I cried like a baby," recalls Seneca, a doting father of three who works three part-time jobs to make ends meet. He tracked down Brianna's family at the hospital and learned they were deeply in debt. Tapping his police buddies, he helped organize a dinner and silent auction that raised $9,000. "We would have lost our house without him," Brianna's mom, Tammi, says. "He's our angel."
Beyond raising funds -- they recently bought a dryer for a family with three gravely ill daughters -- Seneca's group helps in other ways too. On Jan. 25, Seneca and his buddies showed up at the hospital room of a teenage boy dying of bone cancer; they made him a deputy on the spot. All of which, Seneca says, comes as naturally as wearing blue: "It's simple compassion really."
Source: People Magazine
March 5, 2007
Vol. 67 - No. 9 - p.102
Read the People Magazine article (.pdf) and see photos of Officer Seneca and Children's Hospital oncology patients who have benefitted from Cops Fighting Cancer.
Read about 19-year-old Miguel Pedro , whose wishes came true when he was made a deputy by the Aurora Police Department and received his high school diploma.
