The Nigel O. Hodge Foundation Fund at the Community Foundation of the Virgin Islands (CFVI) is celebrating its 13th anniversary with a “Youth A-Glow” luncheon at 1 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 15, at the Columban Hall of Holy Family Church in Estate Tutu, announced CFVI’s president, Dee Baecher-Brown. Tickets for the luncheon cost $50, and proceeds from it will be donated to the Hodge Fund, established in 1996 to support the needs of children with cancer and other critical illnesses in the Caribbean. The keynote speaker will be Kevin Hodge of the Virgin Islands Department of Health.
The event is a celebration of the life of Nigel O. Hodge, a sixth grader who came home from school one day complaining of a lump under his arm. Two weeks later, doctors diagnosed him with Hodgkin’s disease. Just 38 days after his first symptoms appeared, Nigel was dead. After his death, it was discovered that Nigel had been given repeated doses of the wrong type of chemotherapy. Determined Nigel’s death would not be in vain, the Hodge family created the Nigel O. Hodge Foundation Fund at CFVI using monies from a wrongful death lawsuit.
Donations to the Nigel O. Hodge Fund will provide additional resources to help give financial support to critically-ill children for medical treatment and transportation to get them to treatment not available in the Virgin Islands. The fund is one of 90 named funds at the Community Foundation of the Virgin Islands (CFVI).
For tickets or for more information about the luncheon, call Josephine Hodge at 777-9530. For information about the Nigel O. Hodge Foundation Fund or about CFVI’s more than 90 named funds, call CFVI at 774-6031.
