NEWS
WEDNESDAY, MAY 26, 2021
HERMISTONHERALD.COM • A9
Breaking boards for bucks
Stanfi eld taekwondo studio holds fundraiser for Hermiston child’s chemotherapy
By BRYCE DOLE
STAFF WRITER
Hermiston
city budget
looks at a
19.5% jump
By JADE MCDOWELL
NEWS EDITOR
Audrey Bailey was over-
whelmed with emotion at
the sight of the crowd.
Dozens of taekwondo
students gathered with their
families and friends at East-
ern Oregon Family Tae-
kwondo in downtown Stan-
fi eld on Saturday, May 22,
for a “break-a-thon” meant
to raise funds in support
of Bailey’s daughter, May-
sie, a 2-year-old girl from
Hermiston who is under-
going treatment for brain
cancer.
“I just feel really
blessed,” said Bailey, 23,
holding her daughter out-
side the studio. “I just love
knowing these people and
it’s inspiring to me and it’s
making me want to do more
for others.”
The event raised nearly
$15,000 for Maysie Bai-
ley’s upcoming chemother-
apy treatment in Portland,
according to Erwin Watson,
the studio owner and lead
instructor.
“We’re just really thank-
ful for the community com-
ing together,” said Drex-
lyn Bailey, Maysie’s father,
who is 24 and a plumber in
Hermiston. “You just see
that people have a good
heart and that they want to
help.”
Students from the tae-
kwondo studio over the past
month were tasked with
selling $5 planks of wood,
with the promise that they
would break with their bare
hands each board they sold.
That culminated in the
streets of downtown Stan-
fi eld as the drizzly morn-
ing gave way to sun. Fam-
ilies snapped photos and
cheered while their children
chopped down hard on hun-
dreds of planks set between
cinder blocks, at times
wincing with pain when the
plank wouldn’t budge.
Members of the Bailey
family stood nearby. Each
expressed gratitude and sur-
prise at the size of the gath-
ering. Several shed tears
while refl ecting on the kind-
ness of the people that came
out to support their family.
“It confi rms that there’s
still some good in people,”
said Bill Bailey, Maysie’s
grandfather. “This shows
there’s good in the world
that’s worth fi ghting for.”
Months-long process of
chemotherapy
The fundraiser was the
third the studio has held in
recent years, and the sec-
ond for a child with cancer,
Watson said. It began when
Watson’s daughter, who
raised money for the Bai-
leys through haircuts, pro-
posed the idea to her father,
prompting Watson to orga-
nize the fundraiser.
“It’s good not to feel
alone and have community
around you when you’re
going through something
like this,” Audrey Bailey
said.
After having most of
Bryce Dole/Hermiston Herald
Samuel Vander Stelt chops down on the wooden boards he sold to raise money for Maysie Bailey, a 2-year-old Hermiston girl
who is undergoing treatment for brain cancer. Dozens of students from Eastern Oregon Family Taekwondo like Vander Stelt
broke hundreds of boards in the streets of Stanfi eld on Saturday, May 22, 2021.
her brain tumor removed
through surgery in Feb-
ruary, Maysie Bailey fi n-
ished six weeks of radia-
tion treatment in Seattle
last week, the family said.
Doctors told the family that
the treatment went very
well, with some remarking
that she had been the best
patient they had treated.
She did not have to go
through physical therapy
and only lost a small patch
of hair near the back of her
head, the Baileys said.
“They said she would
have no energy,” Drex-
lyn Bailey said. “But she’s
been bouncing around.”
But now begins a
months-long process of
chemotherapy and the
costs that come with it.
As a plumber in Hermis-
ton, Drexlyn can’t make
any money when he misses
work, and paying for the
treatment became a major
concern for the family.
That’s why the Baileys
were “blown away by how
generous and loving and
caring all these people are,”
Audrey Bailey said at the
event.
“We stand behind the
children of our commu-
nity,” said Jackie Lucas, a
lifelong Stanfi eld resident,
whose niece was in the tae-
kwondo school. “There’s a
lot of caring people here.”
across Eastern Oregon,
some from as far as Hep-
pner. Parents at the event
said they bring their chil-
dren long distances to have
them learn self-control, dis-
cipline and determination.
Some children went
above and beyond in the
fundraiser, Watson said,
raising extra money for
Maysie Bailey through
things
like
lemonade
stands.
“It’s
overwhelming,”
Watson said as the event
neared its end. “I couldn’t
talk. It was just so emo-
tional. When it comes to
little kids having cancer
and raising money, and all
the kids pull in together
and they all broke open
their piggy banks — it’s
just amazing that, even
as young as they are, they
understand.”
Bryce Dole/Hermiston Herald
The Bailey family, from left: Maysie Bailey, 2; Audrey Bailey,
23; Drexlyn Bailey, 24; Joel Bailey, 4 months. Maysie Bailey
fi nished up six weeks of radiation treatment in Seattle
last week after she was diagnosed in February with a
brain tumor. Now she begins a months-long process of
chemotherapy in Portland. The event on Saturday, May 22,
2021, was meant to raise funds for her upcoming treatment.
The city of Hermiston’s
budget committee is rec-
ommending the city coun-
cil pass a proposed 2021-22
budget that is $11.2 million
larger than the previous year.
City Manager Byron
Smith told the committee
the 19.5% increase was due
to a number of large capi-
tal projects the city is under-
taking in the coming year.
Those include construction
of a new city hall, an infra-
structure project at the South
Hermiston Industrial Park,
resurfacing the apron at the
Hermiston Municipal Air-
port and various water and
sewer projects.
Some of the city’s capital
projects will be paid for at
least in part by grants from
the state or federal govern-
ment. The $2 million airport
project, for example, will
be covered by a combina-
tion of money from the Fed-
eral Aviation Administration
and Oregon Department of
Aviation.
Smith said the pandemic
didn’t aff ect some of the
city’s revenues, including
the Transient Room Tax,
as much as feared, but the
city did lose about $800,000
on the parks and recreation
side.
The proposed budget
includes a 1% cost of living
increase for staff in July 2021
and a 1.5% increase that will
take eff ect in 2022 if reve-
nues come in as expected.
The budget includes a
one-person increase in staff ,
from 121.47 FTE to 122.47
FTE with the hiring of an
extra water utility worker.
The budget committee
meeting agenda with the
proposed budget attached
can be found at hermiston.
or.us/meetings and a record-
ing of the committee meet-
ing can be found on the
City of Hermiston YouTube
channel.
NORMAL
‘It’s overwhelming’
The day began with
demonstrations in the stu-
dio, where families packed
in to watch their children
thrust, jab and kick while
Watson shouted commands.
Many children stood ner-
vously in front of the large
crowd, making mistakes
that prompted frequent cor-
rections from Watson, who
cracked jokes to ease the
tension.
The studio is made up of
roughly 100 students from
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