Maire’s Journey
I would like to introduce Keith Famie to the SFA Family. Keith is an award-winning documentary director whose next project is about a sarcoma patient. As his website explains, “Maire’s Journey” is a “90-minute, emotionally touching documentary story that follows the final months of a 24-year old cancer patient, Maire Kent (pronounced “Mary”), and the fulfillment of her last wish for her ashes to travel to the ocean in a custom built sailboat hand-crafted by a blind carpenter.”
Keith has asked that we share the following letter with everyone as he is keen to help the SFA fight sarcoma through disease awareness and fundraising for research.
– Bert Thomas, CEO, Sarcoma Foundation of America
Thank you for allowing me to tell the story of 24- year-old Maire Kent, a wonderful young lady who lost the battle to cardiac sarcoma after 11 months.
Maire’s Journey is a documentary scheduled for a 2015 national release. Maire’s story will take you deep into the life of a young woman showing just how difficult and traumatic a fight with sarcoma cancer can be. Her dying wish, once she was admitted to hospice, was that she would be cremated.
She decided she would want her ashes to go into a small sailboat, which would be set sail on northern Lake Michigan. Her water journey would hopefully allow her to reach the ocean on the eastern seaboard where her ashes could be released by her family. This idea all stemmed from a children’s book she learned to read as a child called “Paddle to the Sea.” Her boat has been crafted by George Wurtzel, a blind carpenter who met Maire three weeks before she died.
The boat has been built and the journey will begin July 13, 2014, on Lake Michigan.
I would like to invite you to view the trailer and consider a small donation to this film at our page on Indiegogo. The majority of the film and production filming has been funded. We just need to raise the final dollars to cover travel, production team costs, editing and music licensing. Each individual who donates will receive a gift equal to the amount of the donation. The film premiere will help support the Sarcoma Foundation of America.
I appreciate you taking the time to review this.
Sincerely,
Keith Famie, Executive Producer