Contractor repairs family’s home for free as 7-year-old daughter battles cancer
By Shelley Bortz
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PROSPECT, Pennsylvania (KDKA) — A family hired a local contractor to repair their home, but when he learned that their 7-year-old daughter is battling cancer, he decided their money would be no good.
Guardian angels don’t always have wings. Some carry tools and swoop in just when you need them.
Mark Bowman, aka Man with Tools, was contacted by the Duffy family who needed a lot of repair work done at their home in Butler County.
When Bowman found out the Duffy’s 7-year-old daughter Lucy was battling stage 4 Wilms cancer, which affects her kidneys, he did what he calls the right thing: he worked for free.
“I just feel like sometimes everybody needs a break and it just so happens I was able to give them a break, so that’s what I did,” he said.
“It’s all about giving back. It always comes back around to you. If you’re doing that good, it comes back around to you tenfold.”
Within days of speaking with the Duffys, Bowman and his crew showed up to the Albert Drive home in Prospect and got to work — landscaping, brick laying, cleaning gutters, replacing interior doors and even installing a cat door.
It’s a gesture that changed the Duffy’s lives.
“Mark just really came through because we couldn’t afford to have a lot of this done and he just kind of took that off our plate. He was like, ‘no problem, I’ve got this,'” mom Laura Duffy said.
Since being diagnosed with cancer earlier this year, Lucy has endured surgery followed by weeks of radiation and chemotherapy, with even more to go. But she’s not letting cancer keep her down. Lucy’s positive attitude and strength is what keeps this family moving forward.
“I feel okay about it,” Lucy said.
If you’d like to help the Duffy family’s medical costs, a charitable golf outing will take place July 27 at the Slippery Rock Golf Club.
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