By Rusty Nixon Correspondent
DONALDSON — When the ball is thrown up for tip off on Ancilla College’s game with Kankakee Valley Community College Saturday, Feb. 20 it will have a little more meaning for one Lady Chargers sophomore.

The game is the school’s annual fundraiser for Marshall County’s Ounce of Prevention Foundation —  raising awareness and raising money to help cure breast cancer.
Culver’s Tiffany Leyva has lived through losing her mother to cancer two years ago. While dealing with her mother’s cervical cancer, Leyva was left dealing with her own pain and suffering dealing with the news.
“She tried to hide it from us, me and my brothers,” said Leyva. “The first time she just told us she had to go to Indy. The doctor was just going to do something real quick and that it was no big deal. The second time she had to have surgery it was before a family trip to Orlando. I came in the room behind her and she was looking up Web sites for cancer on the computer. That’s when she told me what was going on.”
For a high school student, it was big awakening.
“I knew that I was going to have to step it up,” she said. “I knew that I was going to have to do the best I could to take care of my brothers now. My older brother (Tony, now 19 and a college student himself) wasn’t going to be able to take care of them. I had an 8-year-old brother (Ethan, now 10) and a 3-year-old brother (Shane, now 5). I was going to have to step it up and take care of them.”
The task hasn’t been easy but it was one that Tiffany wanted to undertake to honor her Mother’s memory.
“She was a caring, loving mother and even when she was sick it just never slowed her down,” she said. “She never showed that she was in pain and she never wanted us to worry about her. She was just so open and easy going and cared about everybody. She was just so easy to open up to. If anybody had any problems of any kind our door was always open for them.”
It means a lot to Leyva to be able to help others who are living with cancer.
“I feel great to be able to do something to help because I know what it feels like and I know what people are going through,” she said. “There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t miss my mom and everything she was. I understand what people feel.”