OKEECHOBEE- The Brahmans are asking their fans to “Go Gold” at their Sept. 10 football game against Frostproof at Okeechobee High School.

When the Brahmans “Go Gold” at home games at OHS, they’re doing so to remind people that September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. Okeechobee started hosting go gold games in 2018 when OHS automotive teacher Jason Anderson wanted to continue work that local mom Vanessa Villalpando began in 2017.

Vanessa’s journey into becoming an activist fighting to raise awareness of childhood cancer started when her daughter, Lexi Villalpando, was diagnosed with leukemia shortly after being born.

Lexi was transferred to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, TN, and Vanessa was assured that St. Jude’s was the best place in the country for her daughter. But she was given a stark introduction to how deadly childhood cancer actually was, even with the best care in the world, when seven kids died back to back within the first week of Vanessa and Lexi arriving at the hospital.

“It was pretty overwhelming,” said Ms. Villalpando, “just the amount of kids that were dying and being diagnosed. My daughter’s patient number is in the 18,000s at St. Jude, and that was back in 2001. The numbers at the hospital now are at almost 60,000, so you tell me if anything has changed in the past 17 years. It hasn’t. There are too many kids that are dying and too many new diagnoses.”

In 2017 Vanessa began making gold ribbons for people to hang on their mailboxes and for local businesses to put on their store fronts. All the ribbons were hand-made by friends and family. She also hung signs around town encouraging people to “go gold” to raise awareness that September is Childhood Cancer Awareness month.

Around that same time, OHS varsity cheerleader Lauren Coffey worked to get Vanessa’s daughter Lexi named an honorary cheerleader at the homecoming game that year. After a lifetime of feeling different from others due to her cancer diagnoses, it was a moment of normalization and fitting in for Lexi. Vanessa refers to that night as a beautiful memory for her daughter.

After the success of 2017, it wasn’t long before Vanessa started receiving messages asking what she had planned for 2018. Already swamped with the work of making ribbons, she was unsure of what the next step would be. That’s when Jason Anderson, OHS automotive teacher and the voice of Brahman football, reached out to Vanessa with the idea of selling gold T-shirts to turn the home stands gold for the Brahmans’ first home game of 2018.

Now in 2021, that tradition is continuing.

This year Jason is helping raise funds for a local North Elementary student recently diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a type of bone cancer. He’s offering purple shirts with a gold American flag on the chest with the words “Childhood Cancer Awareness. Their fight is our fight. #GoGold365.” Also available is a hat with a gold ribbon and a gold arm bracelet.

All of the proceeds from the “Go Gold” items will be donated directly to the family whose daughter is currently fighting bone cancer.

The shirts run $15, with a $1 charge for 2xl and up, while the hats are $15 and bracelets $2. The Brahmans are asking their fans to wear their “Go Gold” gear at the Sept. 10 game against Frostproof.

If you’d like to reach out and and buy some gear or support the Go Gold fundraising efforts you can reach Jason Anderson by phone at 863-634-5272 or email andersonj@okee.k12.fl.us