Workout raises funds to boost childhood cancer research
BUTLER TWP — The ultimate workout to raise money for childhood cancer research is taking place Saturday.
Sixty two-member teams will take on the challenge of the Ultimate Chipper 2019 at CrossFit Recreate on 534 Fairground Hill Road to raise money for CureSearch for Children's Cancer Research in the name of Wesley Zablocki, who died from a form of bone cancer in 2015 at age 11.
A chipper is a workout in which a person completes a stated number of repetitions of an exercise before moving on to the next exercise in a series.
The Ultimate Chipper is a workout known as Wesley's Workout of the Day (WAD). The number of repetitions each team will do is planned based on important dates from Wesley's life, such has his birth date, said his mother, Nikki Zablocki of Butler.
“We have 120 athletes signed up to come and do the workout. So, it's exciting,” she said.
The first chipper, held last year, was put together in a few weeks and drew about 60 people.
“We plan on making it an annual fundraising event,” said Alicia Haller, who co-owns CrossFit Recreate with her husband, Ryan.
Nikki and her husband, Ted Zablocki, will be among the teams and their daughter, Zoe, a freshman at Towson University in Maryland, is volunteering to help with the event.
The Zablockis joined the gym after their son died and told the Hallers about Wesley's Warriors, a group of friends who join the Zablockis on the annual Ultimate Hike fundraiser for CureSearch in West Virginia, and offered to help raise money, Zablocki said.“He was diagnosed in March 2011 with osteosarcoma, a type of cancer in the bone. He was in treatment for four years,” Zablocki said.Wesley underwent chemo, and several major surgeries including lung surgery after the cancer metastasized in his lungs, his father said.The 11 year old died March 3, 2015.“We are involved with an organization called CureSearch. They raise money specifically for pediatric cancer research. Every year, we go on an Ultimate Hike,” Zablocki said.The family also holds other fundraisers, including Super Bowl polls, gun raffles and Wes Stock music festival, and donates all the money they raise to CureSearch, she said.July 7 marks the fifth and final year of the Wes Stock music festival at RC Men's Club in Herman. Tickets can be purchased at the door.The goal is to raise $25,000 from all the events, but the ultimate goal is to prevent childhood cancer.“We don't want other people to deal with what we did,” Zablocki said.
