A GoFundMe page has been created for a longtime employee of Huskies Tavern who has been diagnosed with multiple myeloma.
Kevin Lavallee, who has worked at Huskies Tavern for over 30 years, was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a cancer that forms in blood plasma cells, in May 2023. He is currently undergoing stem cell transplant therapy at Dana-Farber Brigham Cancer Center.
Michael Garceau, who has been friends with Lavallee since childhood, began a GoFundMe on Jan. 20 to help pay for the out-of-pocket treatment expenses.
The fundraiser started with an initial goal of $15,000, though Garceau said in the description that he would “revise this as the full picture of his medical bills becomes clearer.” The goal is currently set at $30,000, and $29,461 has been raised as of the writing of this piece.
Garceau credited the success of the fundraiser to the relationships Lavallee has been able to build over his long career at Huskies Tavern and around the University of Connecticut.
“Not everybody gets to make that number of relationships over time, and then if you just think about all the people who have cycled through UConn in 30 years, and how many of them at some point have ended up at Huskies Tavern, it’s a lot. So, it’s really kind of paying huge dividends to him now,” Garceau said. “I don’t think most GoFundMes get the kind of response that we’re getting, and I think it’s largely because he’s part of that UConn community that he’s built up over that last 30 years.”
Lavallee said that he was moved by the fast positive response to the fundraiser.
“I can give you all the superlatives there are. It just blows me away, and it just made me feel so good,” Lavellee said.
The fundraiser was originally only posted on personal social media accounts, but Lavallee and Garceau said it took off when it was posted to the Huskies Tavern Facebook page and eventually to its website.
“It was absolutely amazing when we turned the GoFundMe on and it was almost a flood. Once the link got posted on the Huskies Tavern website and got out to UConn folks en masse, I mean, the thing just went crazy, so I guess I would just like to say thank you to everybody in the UConn community for stepping up to help Kevin with this,” Garceau said.
Lavallee said that he was “very humbled” by the outpouring of support from the fundraiser.
“It gave me such strength while I was in the hospital,” he said.
Garceau said that throughout the entire experience, Lavallee has been resilient and continually concerned for the well-being of those around him.
“When he first got diagnosed, we were super worried about the toll that just the treatment would take on him, but he’s been super resilient physically as well,” Garceau said. “That’s probably the word that comes to mind for him in the last couple years, just how resilient he’s been and how caring he continues to be about everybody else despite the challenges that he’s got going on.”
Lavalle said that one of his priorities is still to ensure that the people around him and the patrons of Huskies Tavern are enjoying themselves.
“I’ve been doing my job for 30 years, so it’s hard for me to walk away right now and not be part of it, you know?” Lavallee said. “So I’m still doing a little bit, helping out where I can and whatnot.”
Lavallee also said he wanted to help ease the mind of anyone in a similar situation.
“I would love to share my journey with anybody that’s going forward with it as well, you know, put their mind at ease,” Lavallee said.
There is currently no cure for multiple myeloma. Although the cancer will come back in a different place since it is a blood cancer, Lavallee said that the stem cell treatments could lead to remission until new drugs that are currently being developed and tested are ready for use.
Lavallee credited the medical staff at Dana-Farber for helping him through the treatments, especially when it came to minimizing side effects. He said that the doctors and nurses at the facilities were “on top of their game” and “accommodating.”
“I went through the whole thing with minimum side effects because they prepared me for it,” Lavallee said. “I got high-grade chemo for two days in a row, and it had a lot of bad side effects, but they managed it, so I came out with nothing.”
Garceau explained that if there were any leftover donations after covering Lavallee’s medical bills, they would go to Lea’s Foundation for Leukemia Research, for which Garceau sits on a management committee. The foundation donates to research for leukemia and other blood-related diseases.
Lavallee said it was amazing looking through the names and reconnecting with people. According to himself and Garceau, he has individually thanked as many donors as possible.
“I try to reach out to each and every one of them to thank them, you know, but there’s a lot of anonymous ones in there, so I don’t know who they are, but I would love to thank them as well,” Lavalle said.