By Tanya Faulkner
The love of friendship knows no bounds for a beloved Emerald woman.
Former Emerald resident Cherie Whitakker has been living with a terminal cancer diagnosis, and her best friend has stepped up to give her friend the best experience in life that she can.
Ms Whitakker was diagnosed approximately six years ago, at the age of 26, with an inoperable cancer in her brain, and now has a prognosis of less than a year.
Currently, Ms Whitakker is still having to work to pay for her living expenses and mortgage on her own, which is causing her financial struggles, and impacting her quality of life.
Best friend Hailey, and her friend Jane have stepped up and are doing what they can to make life as comfortable as possible for Ms Whitakker, banding together in a series of fundraising efforts, and hope to check off a few bucket list items.
“Cherie wants to take her niece to Disneyland, and visit the Australian Zoo,” Hailey said.
She said they both wanted to do what they could to ease the pressure off Ms Whitakker.
Ms Whitakker spent most of her life in Emerald, going through school in the local community and became a wildlife rescue volunteer through her love of animals, and has recently moved to Langwarry.
Jane said Ms Whitakker is a big lover of animals, and was often spending time down at the local shelters.
“She’s visited all of the shelters in the area at least once,” she said.
Hailey said Ms Whitakker would often ask them “why would anyone give me money?” after seeing some of the donations coming through the fundraiser page.
“Cherie called me in tears because of how generous people had been.
“She would ask me, why are they giving it to her, and how was she going to pay them back?” said Hailey.
Hailey said her and Cherie met over eight years ago through their partners at the time, and became friends over the years after spending a fair amount of time together – even after breaking off those relationships.
“We’ve had lots of laughs over the years, and Cherie has been my go-to pet sitter.
“Our go-to catch up was always sharing a cheese platter or anything to do with animals,” she said.
In fact, she loved animals so much, Hailey said Cherie once had a resident spider on the side mirror of her car that she never cleaned off, and would catch flies for the spider.
“She also had ants in her house, so she would leave them a trail of food, before she realised it was a bad idea,” she said.
Hailey and Jane recently hosted a trivia night in Emerald with the local community, and have set up a My Cause page on Ms Whitakker’s behalf.
Jane said they have had so much support from the community, in particular with the recent trivia event.
“We had gone around the local community to see if we could get prizes for the raffle, and we were able to host the event at Emerald Vibe Gym.
“We were overwhelmed at the amount of support we got,” she said.
They had approximately 100 people in attendance, which was described to have been a great night.
“We raised $11,500 at the trivia last night, and Flynn was the winner of our e-bike prize that we raffled off,” Jane said.
She said they have now raised a total of $18,000 for Cherie, which will now allow her to take her niece to Disneyland.
“She’s just a beautiful soul, and she deserves it,” said Hailey.
Locals wanting to support Cherie’s cause can donate to their MyCause page
mycause.com.au/p/314809/cheries-cancer-care-support-fund
