Hooping it up: 3-on-3 tourney nets $3,320 for bone marrow charity
The van der Swaagh family organized the “3v3 for Charity” basketball tournament at Emerson Playground on July 26.
Eight years ago, Ewan van der Swaagh beat cancer — twice.
Now, he and his family are combining their love of basketball and gratitude for Ewan’s continued good health in a charity fundraiser to support NMDP, formerly the National Marrow Donor Program and Be The Match.
The van der Swaagh family — Ewan’s parents, Seth and Gemma, and brothers Cal, 17, and Graham, 11 — organized the “3v3 for Charity” basketball tournament for boys entering grades six through nine, held at Emerson Playground on July 26.
“The kids ended up trying really hard,” Ewan, 15, said. “That was a lot of fun.”
Players paid a $50 registration fee, and the tournament raised $3,320.
“The registrations were a part of that,” Seth said, “but it seems that so many parents donated extra to NMDP, which was wonderful to see.”
A six-month stay
Ewan’s diagnosis began with a 108-degree fever, his mother said.
“I took him to Emerson immediately, and [we] were ambulanced to Children’s,” Gemma said. “That’s when he was diagnosed with leukemia.”
Ewan had acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a type of blood cancer that begins in the bone marrow and affects white blood cells, which help protect the body against disease.
“They took us up to the sixth floor that day, and we stayed there for six months,” Gemma said. “And the culmination of that was a bone marrow transplant.”
When Ewan finished treatment, he had to isolate for a year, because he was immunocompromised.
“Cal stayed home from school,” Gemma said. “Graham was too young, so we kept him home, too, and we were kind of isolated within the house for that time. [Ewan] started kindergarten a year late, and went to school for about six months, and then he relapsed, and we did the whole thing again.”
The van der Swaagh boys credit their parents for keeping them calm during Ewan’s illness.
“My parents definitely made it seem lighter than it was,” Cal said. “But there [were] parts that were kind of strange: grandparents in the house, no brother half the time — actually all the time.”
Seth said the family passed the time with video and card games, drawing, and Legos.
“I remember most of it, but not the bad things, so that’s pretty great,” Ewan said. “My parents definitely were the big factor in making it not seem like it was terrible. So we had fun times, even when I was really sick.”
After his second bone marrow transplant, Ewan’s health improved, and he’s been cancer-free for eight years.
“He’s the healthiest person in the house,” Gemma said.
‘The perfect game’
Seth says theirs is a “multi-sports” family.
“All three of us love to play basketball,” Cal said. “Our whole family loves it. We love watching it. We love playing in our driveway, and we feel like basketball is the perfect game, like a summer atmosphere where everybody can just come out on a nice day and just really have a great time.”
Seth said the family had talked about some sort of event for years, but sports, activities, and family life keep things busy. This summer, as they started to look ahead to Cal going to college, the van der Swaaghs wanted to give him some leadership opportunities.
“That was part of the impetus,” Seth said. “Wouldn’t it be cool to start something and create a for-charity event?”
Acton Recreation and many volunteers helped in the day’s success, Seth said. He said the morning was a true community event, more than a simple charity fundraiser, with music, food, and prizes for the winning teams.
“All the parents of the kids came and spectated,” he said. “There were picnic blankets down with little kids watching and kids running around. The whole atmosphere was really fun. [It] wasn’t just kids going to a court and playing. It was a whole all-ages kind of event that lasted a good couple hours on a beautiful Saturday.”
The van der Swaaghs would love to see pickup basketball games become “more of a thing” in town.
“We’d love to see Acton be a bit more of a basketball town and try to create a little bit more community and competitiveness,” Seth said. “We have that great facility at Emerson, and we were seeing a few parents afterwards, saying how much we’d love to see kids just go and play pickup on their own. We hope that maybe this tournament helps spark a little bit of that.”
