Lots of 10-year-olds started fourth grade this week, but as one girl from Haddam began the school year, she also began another week of chemotherapy.
Residents want to make sure Emma Becker knows they care. Community members supporting Emma in her battle with neurofibramatosis threw her a party outside Haddam-Killingworth High School on Friday evening.
Audrey Roberts, a friend of Emma's mother, has lived in the Higganum section of Haddam her whole life and said she can't remember a town-wide party for a little girl such as this.
"What we're trying to do is, we're trying to show her that we care, that the whole community cares about her, wants her to get well, and we are working toward that," she said. "She's a sweetheart of a girl, and let me tell you, she has got the strength like you wouldn't believe. She's amazing, an amazing child."
The party featured cupcakes, a Bounce House, and a movie to be screened on a wall of the high school.
