Crime & Safety

Cops Help Provide Smiles for Young Leukemia Patient [VIDEO]

Wilmington resident David Maselli, 3, and his family were given a donation of $5,000 from Cops for Kids With Cancer on Friday. While receiving the donation, Maselli shared plenty of smiles with members of the Wilmington Police Department.

May 11 was a day Mark Maselli and his family will forever remember. It may not have had the same magnitude, but Friday was pretty memorable in its own right.

On that May day, Mark was planning on going to work when he noticed his son David, now three years old, was looking pale. He and his wife, Lilia, took David to the doctor for some tests. In a whirlwind day, David was diagnosed with leukemia and underwent surgery to place a port into his chest 24 hours later.

“I think of May 11, just getting ready for work like any normal day, and now everything has changed for the rest of my life,” said Mark, who added he thought he had a better chance of hitting the lottery than ever hearing a doctor tell him his son had cancer. “They say he’ll be cured, but cancer will always be in the back of our minds. It’s with us for the rest of our lives.”

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Though it’s been a difficult eight months since that day, Friday was one of the brighter moments along the way. The Maselli family visited with a large group of officers from Wilmington Police Department along with a representative from Cops for Kids With Cancer. It was that organization that donated $5,000 to the family as they help David battle leukemia.

Though David has lost his hair during cancer treatments and has lost the ability to have a normal childhood, his smile is one thing that leukemia has not taken from him. That was plenty evident on Friday as he ran around the police station.

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“Seeing him like this makes me so happy,” said Lilia. “There are so many days when he’s going through so much. He’s being a regular kid today. And he doesn’t get that many chances to do that. He’s either at the hospital or at home. He can’t go to school, go to birthday parties or be around a lot of people. So to see him running around here and smiling, it means the world to us.”

David was thrilled during his time at the police station from coloring on the white board with Police Chief Michael Begonis to meeting a K-9 unit and sitting in one of the fire trucks in the garage. It didn’t hurt that after he left the station, David's parents took him to get an order of his favorite french fries.

While Begonis said he was ecstatic to see the smile on David’s face, he added that it was equally as exciting to see Mark and Lilia enjoy their time as well.

“That’s sometimes forgotten when kids have cancer is just how much the families are impacted,” said Begonis. “So any relief that organizations like Cops for Kids With Cancer can give to families is huge, and we certainly support that at the Police Department.”

A fundraiser is planned for April 6 at Knights of Columbus supporting the Maselli family, including a DJ, raffles, door prizes and possibly a silent auction. 

Lilia Maselli can’t predict the future, but she has a good idea what she can expect that day because it will likely be what she’s seen every day since May 11.

“We always knew Wilmington was a great community, but ever since David got sick it’s been unbelievable,” she said. “You never think something like this is going to happen. And when it does, it’s devastating. Having the support of your family, and especially the community, I just don’t know what we would have done without them. I wouldn’t want to live any place else.” 


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