FRANKLIN, Tenn. (WTVF) — There's a pretty good chance you've seen a Franklin pumpkin patch belonging to the Cooper Trooper Foundation. It's at a great location. 530 Cool Springs Boulevard. Do you know the full story about the pumpkin patch and who it goes to help?
"One time, I used the stem of it as a nose, and I carved a face above the nose," smiled 11-year-old Caroline Lantz, walking through a pumpkin patch. "It was really cool."
I first met Caroline a year ago. She was the quick kid playing soccer in the pink Nikes who's lived through so much.
"I was four-years-old when I first got cancer," she explained. "Stage four neuroblastoma cancer. I went through many, many cycles of chemo and immunotherapy, and I had two transplants."
There with her through it all was brother Andrew.
"My brother, he's a very big supporter," Caroline said. "He's a really good brother."
With her treatments, Caroline can't play sports right now.
"I'm supposed to get chemo next week," she said. "We think it's working. We have my scans in November. Hopefully, they're clear, and it's shrinking."
Caroline's turned her attention to how she can help others at the Cooper Trooper Foundation pumpkin patch in Franklin.
"What you're buying your pumpkins for, it goes to a cause," she said.
Missy Cook Brookover started the Cooper Trooper Foundation 15 years ago.
"Our youngest son Cooper was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer called infantile fibrosarcoma," Missy explained. "He was eight-weeks-old."
Cooper's now 16 and cancer-free. He helps work the pumpkin patch with money going to important causes.
"We started a childhood cancer research fund," Missy said. "We do that through the hospital at Vanderbilt. We have given over $450,000 to that childhood cancer research fund."
Some of the money also goes toward courage kits for the siblings of children living with cancer.
"It's got some resources in it, some things that talk about what siblings go through," Missy said.
Indeed, when I first met her last year, Caroline told me how important her brother has always been.
"He would stay every second in the hospital with me if he could," she smiled. "He's just so nice and so loving to me."
To see people looking to help by picking up a pumpkin through the Cooper Trooper Foundation, that's pretty grand for Caroline.
Do you have a positive, good news story? You can email me at forrest.sanders@newschannel5.com.
For people of my generation, in our younger days we spent part of our weekends watching music shows like American Bandstand and Soul Train. That was before the age of music videos. Several years before Soul Train was syndicated out of Chicago, another syndicated R&B show was taped in Nashville at NewsChannel 5. Night Train aired in the 60s and included what may have been the first TV appearance for legendary guitarist Jimi Hendrix. Forrest Sanders has another great look back at station history.
-Lelan Statom
