The Franklin Reporter & Advocate Eight Villages, One Community
An online fundraising account has been established for a former township resident suffering from leukemia.
The campaign is targeted to raise money to help offset the costs faced by the family of 15-year-old Morgan Hewitt, who is suffering from T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
Hewitt, the youngest of six siblings, attended grammar school in Franklin. Her older brothers, most notably Colin, were star wrestlers at Franklin High School.
A sophomore at North Hunterdon High School, Hewitt was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia in September 2020. Her mother, Barbara, said the AML is in remission, and doctors at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia are turning their attention to the T-Cell ALL.
She’ll be undergoing chemotherapy at the Philadelphia-based hospital for several weeks, then will have a bone marrow test and be able to return home for several days, Barbara Hewitt said.
“It’s a waiting game,” she said.
“We’re hoping she goes into remission, then we can get this moving,” Hewitt said.
For many bone marrow transplant candidates, a huge obstacle is finding a bone marrow match. Morgan Hewitt doesn’t have that problem, her mother said.
“All five of my other children matched her,” she said. “There’s usually a 25 percent chance that one child in your family will be a match.”
“Doctors are flabbergasted,” she said. “This has never been seen before.”
Hewitt said that Morgan’s youngest brother, Ian, 17, will be her donor.
Until then, Barbara Hewitt said, her days are spent visiting with her daughter and staying at a nearby Ronald McDonald House.
“We sit here, play card games, color, walk, got to physical therapy,” she said. “We try to maintain life as much as possible.”
Family friend Colleen Haffling and her daughter, Maggie, started the GoFundMe fundraiser, as well as several others.
“We did silicone bracelets with the hashtag #WeFightWithMorgan,” she said.
They also sold t-shirts with the hashtag #FaithOverFear, Haffling said.
Haffling said she decided to start the GoFundMe account when Morgan was moved from Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick to CHOP.
“Maggie and Morgan are really good friends and Morgan’s mom and I are really good friends,” she said. “We just love the girl and we wanted to do as much as we possibly could for her. You don’t know what insurance is going to cover, so every little bit that we can do.”
The GoFundMe account can be accessed here. As of January 8, $6,216 of the targeted $25,000 had been raised.
“We’re playing it by ear to see where Morgan’s at,” Haffling said about the campaign. “If we need to keep it going, then we’ll keep it going as long as possible.”
