Fundraiser planned for leukemia-stricken school custodian
October 17, 2012
By Sebastian Moraga
John Faccone, a parent at Fall City Elementary School, said it best: To know P.J. is to love him.
“It always seems that the best people are the ones chosen to fight the toughest battles,” P.J. Duvall’s sister Kelli wrote on his CaringBridge website.
Patrick “P.J.” Duvall, custodian at FCE and sign-language instructor, has been diagnosed with leukemia, so Faccone and his business partner Peter Click teamed up to raise some money for him.
“We just really need the community to get behind this event and support this man,” Faccone wrote in an email.
Click and Faccone will hold a wine-themed fundraiser, P.J.’s Sip and Social, at Fall City Bistro at 6 p.m. Oct. 24. Event tickets are $100 each, with 90 percent of the proceeds going to Duvall’s care and recovery from the disease, Click said.
Fall City Bistro’s owner Sean Langan is a renowned Seattle chef, who recently opened a restaurant in the Snoqualmie Valley.
He will provide a gourmet meal at cost, while Faccone and Click will provide the wine. The event will also include musical numbers.
“It’s 10 wines, each one matched with a specific food preparation by Chef Sean,” Click said. “It’s actually quite a lot.”
The event lasts until 9 p.m.
“Drop in when you like, leave when you like,” Click said. “It’s informal, but very gourmet in terms of the foods and the selection of wines from around the world.”
Faccone wrote, “We hope to hand P.J. a check for $10,000 when this happens.”
Faccone’s two children attend FCE, one in kindergarten and another in fourth-grade. Click has had three children attend the school.
“We have known P.J. for a long time,” Click said. “Wonderful human being, and a great man.”
Faccone agreed.
“Many, many, many children have gone through Fall City Elementary, then off to Chief Kanim or Snoqualmie Middle School, and then Mount Si High School,” Faccone wrote. “P.J. has been around a while, and is beloved by them all.”
The Click children brought piggy-bank change to school to raise money for P.J., Click said.
The illness has kept Duvall from working and teaching, but he still makes sporadic appearances at Fall City Elementary, Faccone said.
“The kids are happy to see P.J., but he’s lost some weight, so they were probably taken aback by that,” he said.
Kelli wrote that her brother last visited the school on Oct. 11.
“Wow,” she wrote. “It was so nice to see everyone and for him to be around his ‘family’ again, joking with them and catching up on things.”
She added that her brother has taken to fighting the disease from the start.
“The diagnosis is what nobody expected, leukemia,” she wrote. “My brother, the fighter that he is, took the results like a champ and simply said, ‘What’s next?’”
If you go
P.J.’s Sip and Social
Fall City Bistro
4050 Fall City-Carnation Road S.E.
6 p.m. Oct. 24
Buy tickets at www.winefidence.eventbrite.com.
Donate to CaringBridge at www.caringbridge.org/visit/patrickduvall.
Sebastian Moraga: 392-6434, ext. 221, or smoraga@snovalleystar.com. Comment at www.snovalleystar.com.
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