Homegrown Happy Valley

Gary Landon, owner of Roly Poly (107 E. Beaver Ave.), has stopped making donations to non-profits. The small business owner simply can’t afford to be charitable in the midst of the economic crunch.  

 THON, however, is the exception. And the reason is very personal. 

One evening in December 1996, Landon’s wife rear-ended another car after skidding on ice. After Gary’s five-year-old stepson, Nate, began experiencing severe stomach pains, he was rushed to Mount Nittany Medical Center. Apparently, the seat belt had punctured Nate’s colon during the crash. The doctors repaired his colon, but discovered a small tumor during the surgery. Within a few days specialists diagnosed neuro-blastoma, a common childhood cancer. 

“I remember feeling this isn’t supposed to happen to me,” Landon says. “A lot of thoughts were going through my head. Embarrassingly, one of those thoughts was how am I going to pay for all of this?”

Support came in the form of The Four Diamonds Fund, which covers additional costs not covered by insurance. That includes medical bills, gas and food vouchers, clinical psychologists, nutritionists and, as Landon discovered, even video games to keep patients and siblings entertained at the hospital.

As for Landon’s stepson, his tumor was caught before the cancer spread and he headed for a full recovery.

This weekend as 708 students dance for kids who aren’t as fortunate, Roly Poly will be providing fuel with its yearly donation of 50 sandwich platters. Landon also contributed $800 to The Four Diamonds Fund through Roly Poly Day, which donates 20 percent of all sales to the non-profit. Says Landon: “When people from THON approached me to donate it was a really easy decision because I have seen the impact it has on people’s lives.”

Three years later, in spite of a business climate as bleak as the February weather, that commitment hasn’t faded.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 19th, 2010 at 9:28 am and is filed under Events, Food, Kids. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.