GREAT VALLEY — For fifth grader Alex Newark, a member of the Ellicottville peewee football team, fighting for his life in a hospital room was the last opponent he expected to face this fall.

Alex, an 11-year-old Ellicottville student who lives in Great Valley, was diagnosed in mid-August with stage 2 Osteosarcoma, a type of bone cancer that mainly appears in children and young adults.

“He’s doing really good,” said Penny Harrison-Newark, Alex’s mom, in a recently conversation with The Salamanca Press. “He’s responding really well to the treatment.”

Alex is in week 10 of his 29-week chemotherapy treatment at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo. Part of Alex’s treatment includes medication that makes his white blood cell count drop after a week and then come back up.

A benefit for Alex is scheduled for 1 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 13 at the Great Valley Volunteer Fire Co. Clubhouse on Depot Street.

According to Harrison-Newark, the week of Alex’s cancer diagnosis was crazy.

Monday, Aug. 15 included a regular check-up for Alex. He’d already been playing football for a few weeks at that point and had complained of pain in his leg. Harrison-Newark, an LPN and volunteer EMT, and Alex’s father, Josh, a paramedic, suspected it could have been growing pains.

“He grew almost 4 inches over the summer,” Harrison-Newark said. “He was still playing football, tackling, running and everything like that.”

At the check-up, Alex’s pediatrician suggested the pain might be a pulled muscle, but just to be safe scheduled an ultrasound.

The following day, Alex went for the ultrasound. The results showed some irregularities, including a mass in his left leg. The next step was scheduling an MRI, which was called in on Wednesday.

On Thursday of that week, the MRI was completed in the morning and by 4 p.m., the doctors told Penny and Josh that the mass in Alex’s leg was likely cancer.

On that Friday, the family took the trip to Roswell and the recovery process began.

“From Monday to Friday it was intense,” Harrison-Newark said. As a nurse, she said she suspected Alex would need some sort of treatment or surgery based on Tuesday’s results, and she began planning what they would have to do next depending on the diagnosis.

“I had friends’ support right from the ultrasound,” she said. “It really hasn’t sunk in really hard yet. Cancer doesn’t really scare me since there have been so many survivors, right in my family even.”

ALEX HAS HAD a positive attitude throughout the process, continuing to act like an 11-year-old by running around and playing when he can. Harrison-Newark said her son doesn’t fully understand the situation and how sick he could be, which has been good.

“He misses all his classmates,” she said. “At first it was exciting because he didn’t have to go to school.”

Harrison-Newark said Alex also misses his teachers and the environment that school provides, but he does receive tutoring a few hours a week. But before the school year even started, many of Ellicottville’s teachers and students knew of the situation.

“Coming in as a new teacher dealing with a student that has cancer, and having to tell your whole class, was very frightening,” said Chelsea Cole, a teacher aid in Alex’s room last school year. Cole said another teacher told her about his diagnosis at the end of the summer and she was heartbroken.

“I got to know Alex very well by working with him in small groups and just being in the fourth grade class every day,” Cole said. “Since I had gotten to know Alex in fourth grade, I couldn’t believe that this could happen to such an active 11-year-old.”

After talking to Harrison-Newark and the principal, Cole said she was a little more at ease with this situation. They had a brief conversation about what was going on and how Alex was getting treatment to get better.

“I prepared myself emotionally to be able to talk about it on the first day,” she said. “The students took it very well and right away wanted to make cards and were asking when he was going to come and visit. They are still always asking how he is doing and many students see him at sporting events.”

Alex’s friends and peers are concerned and miss him being in class, but they aren’t the only ones.

In just a couple months, the entire school district and Ellicottville community has reached out. There have been numerous activities throughout the school to help with the fundraising for Alex and to show how much everyone cares about him.

Superintendent Mark Ward has known Alex and his family for many years, both in the school and out in the community, including the Great Valley Volunteer Fire Department.

“I’m very aware of the struggle he’s going through,” Ward said. “The kids have done some real wonderful things already.”

Some of the classes put together baskets for Alex’s benefit Nov. 13. The football teams had stickers for sale and the volleyball teams had shirts and baked goods to buy. Alex was even an honorary captain for the varsity football team in the postseason.

“The support throughout the school has just been unbelievable and I am extremely proud to be a part of that,” Cole said.

“Everybody’s getting involved, which is always powerful and a neat thing to do,” Ward said. “They get to share in a great feeling and what it’s like to give back or help somebody else. That’s as much a part of education as learning how to do math and English. It’s experiences like this that will help them become better people.”

Ward said he’s gone through several similar situations in the past at Ellicottville, most recently with alumnus Kirk Rowland last year.

“Our community is so well known for coming together and helping families,” Ward said of the greater Ellicottville/Great Valley community. “I’m just proud to live here. … People know each other, the kids know each other, the families know each other.”

As a first year teacher, Cole said Alex’s situation is something that she would have never dreamt would happen to “a wonderful young man, or to any fifth grader for that matter.”

“I know Alex is going to make it through this because of the tremendous support and amount of prayers being said for him everyday,” she said. “Every time I meet with Alex, he has such a positive and wonderful attitude, along with his entire family. Alex is a very strong and an amazing kid, and I am very glad I’m getting this opportunity to work with him.”

OUTSIDE OF SCHOOL, Harrison-Newark said people have been available to help right from the start, such as checking on the dog at home and looking after Alex’s brother while Harrison-Newark is in Buffalo.

“Other families are taking him in and making sure he makes it to all his sports and extracurricular activities,” she said. “There is still a long list and we’re trying to spread the families out so we don’t overuse them because we’re going to be doing this for about 40 weeks.”

Later this December, Alex will likely undergo a surgery to replace part of his femur. The Stanmore implant would be one of the first surgeries of its type done in Buffalo. The procedure includes cutting a majority of Alex’s femur out, giving him a new knee and replacing the femur with a rod that goes into his tibula. The magnetic materials used will make for easy adjustments as Alex continues to grow.

“He’s excited that he’s going to get a rod put in his leg so that he can wear his steel-toe boots again,” Harrison-Newark said. “He’s like, ‘When am I going to get my surgery so I can get my boot?’ That’s his perspective.”

Tickets for Alex’s Nov. 13 benefit are $20 for adults and older children, $10 for children 10 and younger, and includes food, beverages and entry into a $250 raffle. Some of the other fundraisers at the event include a spin-the-wheel, silent-auction, baskets, a half-pig raffle and a 50/50 drawing. Other bigger prizes include Buffalo Bills-related items.

“Katy’s Fly-In and Villaggio have donated the food and the service for the whole event,” Harrison-Newark said. “I do believe our sports community friends have offered to help up with clean-up and whatever else needs to be done.”

Tickets for the benefit can be purchased at Katy’s Cafe, Villaggio, CCSE, The Pub, The Clinton and The Salamanca Press.

For donations or more information, contact Peggy Root at 244-0851, Todd Palmatier at 244-0964 or Christy Wiser at 474-7862.

“I just want everyone to know how thankful we are,” Harrison-Newark said. “We didn’t expect so much support. That’s what brings me to tears. We’re just really overwhelmed by the support. I know Ellicottville and this community is tight, but I did not know how tight and how much support they have.”

To follow Alex’s progress, visit the #Alex41Strong Facebook page.