Utah family sets up campground in Rexburg to fight cancer – Rexburg Standard Journal

REXBURG A family from Sandy, Utah, is renting out space in a field across from Walmart in hopes of raising money to help their mother combat multiple myeloma cancer.

Earlier this year the Paul and Jenny Ahlstrom family went looking for a way to raise money and opted to rent out the farmland. The family started their fundraising about two years ago and so far have raised $477,000 of the $500,000 needed to fund two cancer treatments.

The campsites rent from $200 for tents to $250 for RV camping. The family advertised on various websites, and as of Friday they had rented out about 90 spaces for an estimated 400 people. They have a total of 25 acres to use should they need to open more campsites.

Each of the Ahlstroms six children worked on a portion of the project. The familys youngest opened a lemonade stand while other siblings created the eclipse camp and advertised it on social media in various ways.

Paul Ahlstrom served a Mormon mission with Rexburg farmer Roger Muir, who helped the family secure the land to transform it into a campground.

Before securing the property, the Ahlstroms needed a camping permit. That required them to get 20 portable restrooms, none of which were available in the Gem State.

Who would have thought the limiting factor on setting up a fundraiser would be access to porta-potties? We shipped them from Utah. They were $600 a porta-potty. Thats $12,000 of porta-potties. Yikes! Paul Ahlstrom said.

The joke was that the portable restrooms had been misnamed.

Instead of Honey Buckets, they should be called Gold Buckets. We pretty much bought them, he said.

Campers have been undeterred by the straw covering the field. On Friday the family received four calls about camping there. Had they been there early Friday morning, they would have had seven extra campers.

The Ahlstroms plan to set up a temporary kitchen for their campers. They also plan to host a breakfast, childrens games and the movie Galaxy Quest over the weekend for their guests.

We have central cooking tables and a couple dozen stoves everybody can cook on if they want, Paul Ahlstrom said.

Jenny Ahlstrom also visited the campground on Friday. She was diagnosed with cancer in 2010. Instead of letting the disease get her down, she created a foundation, Myeloma Crowd, and is personally working with doctors from New York to Germany to find a cure. She also hosts a weekly radio show for cancer patients.

According to the Mayo Clinic, multiple myeloma cells attack healthy bone marrow and crowd out normal blood cells.

Rather than produce helpful antibodies, the cancer cells produce abnormal proteins that can cause kidney problems, the clinic's website reported.

The Mayo Clinic reported that about three percent of Americans over the age of 50 suffer from the disease. The older a person is, the more likely it is that they will experience the illness. Men usually develop the disease, and the disease is twice as likely to be found in African-Americans.

Because Jenny Ahlstrom was well under 50, female and of European descent, the diagnosis came as a shock, she said.

I had a lot of bone damage. It hurts your kidneys. Its a plasma cancer, she said.

Jenny Ahlstrom has had two stem cell transplants to fight the disease.

This disease is weird. It always relapses. You can go a year, you can go six months, you can go 10 years, but eventually youll relapse and the treatments will stop working. Its a terminal cancer, she said.

Jenny Ahlstrom expects to return for more treatment as her remission numbers increase. Despite the ongoing treatment, she chooses to remain positive.

The fun part and the exciting part is that we decided to start this foundation, she said.

The Ahlstrom family heard about the eclipse through a friend earlier this month. The family later researched ideal locations to watch the eclipse and ways to earn money toward their foundation.

The primary goal was to help raise money for Jennys cancer foundation, Myeloma Crowd, Paul Ahlstrom said.

They later chose Rexburg because of its generally good weather this time of year and because it was rated as one of the top spots for eclipse viewing. After visiting a local hotel, they decided to set up a campground of their own.

They said the Japanese Space Agency rented their entire hotel for the August eclipse two years ago, Paul Ahlstrom said.

Thanks to Pauls long friendship with Muir, the family decided to host a campsite and earn money that way.

Originally from California, Paul Ahlstrom works as an entrepreneur and has formed various companies. Through the campsite hes currently teaching his own children how to become entrepreneurs as well.

If the family breaks even on the campground endeavor, it will be a lesson well-learned, Paul Ahlstrom said.

We dont know if its a fundraiser or a fun, expensive camping weekend, he said.

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Utah family sets up campground in Rexburg to fight cancer - Rexburg Standard Journal