Students, Teachers Unite to Support Milford Girl Fighting Rare Disorder

Last week, sixth graders and teachers of Stacy Middle School came together to help out one of their own. 

On Friday, May 30, the sixth grade class at Stacy Middle School hosted a special event formed after a student, Josh Scherer, gave one of his teachers a piece of paper with a website written on it. 

The website, it turned out, was established to help support his sister Lily, who is fighting a rare disorder known as Goldenhar Syndrome, a congenital disease that causes abnormalities in the formation of the face and head. 

"We teachers had no idea that Josh and his twin brother, Jeremy, had a sister with medical problems," said Marilyn Gilman, a teacher in the "6-Red" cluster at Stacy. "When it came time for our team to decide on a community service project for the school year, it was unanimous."

Teachers in the school's 6-Red cluster, of which Josh is apart, sought to help the family, and did so with last week's event, which was held at Milford town Park, where students pledged a certain amount of money for each of several various activities, including hula hooping, sack races, egg-on-a-spoon races and other activities.  

"We wanted to raise awareness of Golendhar Syndrome, as well as money for Lily, but in such a way as to involve all of our students in a fun way," Gilman said. We decided to hold an old-fashioned, pledge-for-activity type of fundraiser, and the Smile-a-Thon was born, taking its name from the Smiles for Lily website." 

The total amount raised prior to the event was $7,000, Gilman said, and a check was presented to The Scherer Family.