Mahopac Mess Fest Raises $80,000 for Cancer Research

The 4th Annual day of fun, sun, and mud delivered on all fronts

On a warm afternoon this past July 30, thousands of guests gathered at Kiwi Country Day Camp in Mahopac for the Ty Louis Campbell Foundation‘s 4th Annual Muddy Puddles Mess Fest, co-organized by the Muddy Puddles Project. The day-long event—which Muddy Puddles hopes will encourage parents to shift their attention away from “the everyday stress of being a grownup” and instead begin toward “the fun in all things messy”—featured a massive mud pit, tons of splatter paint, pie tosses, food fights, zip lines, carnival rides, and more.

This little girl gives an entirely new meaning to finger painting at the 2016 Muddy Puddles Mess Fest, July 30th at Kiwi Country Day Camp

But the real magic arrived in the form of roughly 2,500 parents, friends, kids, and volunteers coming together to honor the affiliated charity’s namesake, Ty “Super Ty” Campbell, and raising a whopping $80,000-plus dollars. That total surpassed 2015’s by more than $5,000. 

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The event is a fitting tribute for Ty, a fun-loving boy from Pawling who looked up to superheroes and demonstrated true hero-like strength after doctors found a cancerous mass at the base of his skull when he was not quite three years old. Less than two years later, Campbell died at home in his parents’ arms.

Each year since Ty’s death, it’s been the TLC Foundation’s mission to raise awareness for various, aggressive childhood cancers and, per its website, “help fund the progress that is being made in developing more effective, less harmful treatment for a range of high-risk pediatric cancers.”

 

For information on how to organize your own Mess Fest and battle childhood cancer, click here

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