By Tammie Mulvey
Houlton Rotarian
The Houlton Rotary Club recently welcomed Lindsay Turner from Sarah’s House of Maine along with Stan Peterson. Turner informed the group on a project that her sister started, and now she and others are making it happen.
Sarah Turner was born in Greenville and moved to Dexter at the age of three with her family. Sarah and her identical twin sister, Lindsay, were the youngest of nine brothers and sisters. They were infamously known as “the Turner Twins” on the athletic fields and courts as well as in the classroom. During high school Sarah met Ben Robinson, whom she would later marry.
After high school Sarah and Ben moved to Old Town where they married, attended college and had their daughter, Morgan. Sarah’s sense of adventure and fun loving spirit led her down many paths, both personally and professionally. One such path was joining the Old Town Rotary Club. Sarah was drawn to the Rotarian way of life: “service above self.”
In 2010, Sarah was diagnosed with a brain tumor. She underwent an open-awake craniotomy in Boston to remove the tumor and then had chemotherapy and radiation treatments using state of the art technology at the Lafayette Cancer Center in Brewer.
It was during her treatment in Brewer that the idea of a Cancer Hospitality House first began. Sarah’s idea was born out of interactions with two women that were receiving radiation treatment at the Lafayette Cancer Center at the same time Sarah was there. These women were both traveling great distances to get to treatments. One woman came from Eastport — five hours round trip, every day, five days a week, for six weeks!
Sarah couldn’t imagine the added hardships caused by travel to and from the Cancer Center, and she said to Lindsay and Ben “They can just stay the night at our house. Let’s go buy bunk beds and set them up downstairs for people to sleep on. “Sarah knew that buying bunk beds was not the solution to a much bigger problem, and she was serious about the idea of helping these patients find a place to stay.
She took her idea to the Old Town Rotary Club where it picked up support and momentum. “It needs to be bigger; we need a house!” she said. And so it was born, the idea to build a cancer hospitality house to serve our region and the biggest, most rural part of our state.
Sarah met with the people she knew through Rotary and her work in the community, and the process of creating the Cancer Hospitality House of Maine began. Sarah was featured as a cancer survivor the summer before she passed and was quoted: “It was in my battle with cancer that I found my purpose for living.” After her work on the cancer hospitality house began, Sarah started back at work and continued on in her Rotary Club efforts. In August of 2011, Sarah’s cancer returned. This time an operation was not possible.
With her sense of humor intact and her courageous spirit unbroken, Sarah spent her last days at home with her loving family and friends. Her family all said the same things about her near the end: “She made us laugh every single day. She was not afraid…her faith was so strong…”
Sarah Lunette Robinson, 26, died Sunday, Dec. 4, 2011.
Since her death Benny and Lindsay have received multiple awards on Sarah’s behalf for her work during her fight, including; the Rotarian of the Year Award for 2011-2012 and the Terry Fox Humanitarian Award, presented at the 2012 Champion the Cure Challenge.
Fundraising efforts have already begun for the new Cancer Hospitality House, including Sarah’s six-year-old daughter Morgan’s efforts selling lemonade and eggs from her chickens to make sure her mother’s dream comes true. You can host a party with Sarah’s sister Lindsay helping out, or make a donation. You can look up on information or donate on line at http://www.sarahshouseofmaine.org.
