Raise It Up
At 6 p.m. this Sunday, June 24, the Rose & Crown at 23 South Water Street will be the venue for music, dancing, raffles, silent and live auctions, and a bit of metaphysical fun. And all who take part will be helping a member of the Nantucket community stricken with a rare and aggressive form of cancer.
“Raise It Up for Rachel” is an event designed to raise funds to help Rachel Parrotto Budzynski with transportation to and from Dana Farber Cancer Institute, additional treatments, and day care and living expenses as she battles high-grade neuroendocrine carcinoid. Rachel is well-known on the island for helping others with acupucture, craniosacral therapy, and Chinese herbal medicine she offered during the seven years since she founded Nantucket Acupuncture.
Mindy Levin and Laura Wasserman, two of the event organizers described the evening as “a way to do something really helpful that will be appreciated” while having fun. There has been an outpouring of community support, and donations of items to be auctioned at Sunday’s benefit “have been pouring in.”
The auctions will include large and small times, from movie tickets to use of a vacation home in Arizona with airfare to get there. There are two bicycles donated by Young’s Bicycle Shop, dinner and babysitting packages, a pair of Red Sox tickets with a car rental, use of vacation homes in Hawaii and Turks & Caicos, a Hyannis shopping spree, two round-trip tickets on Colgan Air from LaGuardia to Nantucket, and much more. Not surprisingly, Rachel’s fellow health care professionals on Nantucket have donated certificates to “every type of bodywork imaginable.”
Tickets to the fundraiser are $25 and may be purchased in advance at Wolfhounds, 21 Main Street and at Nantucket Family Chiropractic at 4 Bartlett Road.
As part of this fundraising effort, there will be two benefit performances at 3 pm and 5 pm on Sunday of Paul Carpenter’s “Mentally Hip” show, featuring an “unforgettable metaphysical journey through a surreal world of psychokineses and ESP.” Tickets to these performances at Bennett Hall, 62 Centre Street are $20 for adults, $10 for children ages 8 to 12.
