Community Unites to Celebrate Leicester Girl's Birthday After Year-Long Cancer Battle

A Journey of Strength and Hope

It was a chemo day, and she was a bit tired, but Maryangelie Rivas didn’t hesitate when asked one recent afternoon what drives her. “I want to live,” the 15-year-old Leicester High School student, flanked by her mother and older sister in their home, said simply. It’s been 13 months since Rivas, who goes by Mary, and her mom learned in a hospital emergency room that she had leukemia. Instead of a planned family cruise, Mary was rushed to intensive care and, after two “close calls,” the oncology unit at UMass Memorial Medical Center — University Campus on North Lake Avenue. She stayed for nearly a year.

“It was like our home,” Mary’s mother, Carmen Garcia-Gonzalez, said, describing compounding side effects and painful digestive issues that left her daughter hospitalized for months at a time. Garcia-Gonzalez, an assistant principal at Worcester Dual Language Magnet School, recounted the family’s whirlwind journey during an interview in their living room. The handsome space, once furnished with an abundance of mom’s beloved houseplants, is now adorned with colorful floral Lego bouquets meticulously crafted by Mary. “The plants create fungus and mold, and she cannot be around any of that,” Garcia-Gonzalez said — a reminder of a fight that still looms.

While Mary is finally able to stay home regularly, having stabilized from treatment enough to leave the hospital in May, she has at least another year and a half of chemotherapy planned. This summer, as the soon-to-be sophomore watches her blood counts and tries to return to some semblance of normalcy, her mother and sister are hoping to give her an experience she lost out on last year — her traditional quinceañera (15th birthday celebration) — with some help from the community.

A Milestone Lost

The quinceañera is a milestone in Hispanic culture, symbolizing a girl’s transition from childhood to adulthood. Mary, sick from treatment last year, had to forgo the tradition, part of an ordeal that had already forced her to confront things many adults have not. The outgoing 14-year-old — a former cheerleader with a penchant for cosmetology, the color pink and her beloved bunny, Flora — missed many rites of passage during her lengthy hospital stay. As she fought through grim side effects that, her mom said, gnawed at her insides, she spent her freshman year of high school completing assignments online, her main connection to the outside world.

“I was always on (my phone),” she said, which, while providing an outlet for her creativity through her posts on TikTok, also served as a reminder of the experiences she was missing with friends. As others posted updates of cheer practice or complained about school, Mary sat with her mother in the hospital, often laying side by side in a couple of beds pushed together. The illness came as a shock to Mary, her mother and her 18-year-old sister Destiny, who had traveled to the emergency room June 28, 2024, after Mary had been unable to stop vomiting prior to their planned cruise. Tears rimmed Garcia-Gonzalez’s eyes as she described doctors running and rerunning bloodwork all night, until, after multiple tests and prodding, finally admitting: They believed Mary had cancer.

She was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a blood cancer that progresses quickly. Before the fact that the family wouldn’t be celebrating their cruise could fully set in, Mary was whisked to intensive care, where, Garcia-Gonzalez said, she had two “close calls.”

A Family United

As her sister lay in the hospital facing an uncertain battle, Destiny Rivas decided to scrap her plan to pursue her nursing degree at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams. She, her sister and their mom — a single mother since a separation 12 years ago — had always dubbed themselves “The Three Musketeers.” She didn’t want to leave anyone behind. “She was, like, ‘Mom, no worries. I'm not gonna go to college because I'm gonna stay here with you and I'm going to help you through all of this,’” Garcia-Gonzalez recalled, looking at her eldest daughter with love. “And I was like, 'There’s no way,'” she said, her voice breaking. “'You’re going to be a child. Mommy will do mommy’s job and you go get your nursing degree because you will be able to help me more.'”

Destiny called her soccer coach in North Adams, informing her she’d likely be behind on her workouts. The coach, Deb Raber, immediately ordered new pregame shirts honoring Mary, Destiny recalled, part of a response at her school she called amazing. “#Maryangeliestrong” became a hashtag emblazoned on bracelets, stickers and helmets across campus, as students at the small school rallied around their new colleague. “Our baseball team helped to run the fundraiser. The lacrosse team and both hockey teams got stickers for their helmets,” Destiny said. “It’s the best example of what a small community can do.”

Support from the Community

Garcia-Gonzalez, turning her phone around, showed a reporter dozens of photos of experiences philanthropic organizations have provided the family. National nonprofits like JoyRx, along with Worcester organizations like Why Me & Sherry’s House, have provided entertainment, food and emotional support, while Mary recently was able to enjoy a week at The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, a Connecticut nonprofit summer camp for ill children started by actor Paul Newman. Destiny, who volunteered at the camp and plans to get more involved, said she was amazed at how the layout and staff there catered so well to the medical demands of the children they served.

Garcia-Gonzalez smiled as she described how the camp gathered parents together at a hotel for some pampering and bonding — the first time in more than a year, she said, she was able to relax for a bit. “I still worried because I hadn’t left her side for so long,” she said. However, once she settled in, she was able to enjoy herself and have helpful conversations with other parents. The family also thanked Tommy’s Place, a Cape Cod nonprofit that recently put them up free in one of its giant “dream” vacation homes, with a pool and brightly decorated rooms, for a week.

“Bite me cancer!” Mary wrote next to a drawing of a shark on a tile, emblazoned with her family’s picture, that will, along with those of other families, be a permanent fixture in the home. “Faith over fear!” the family added. “The Three Musketeers Fight Back!”

Gratitude and Resilience

Garcia-Gonzalez said she and her children, always thankful for their blessings, have become even more thankful for what they have since Mary’s illness. Words of gratitude are literally engraved onto the stairs of the family’s Leicester home, as well as on signs, pillows and other items in every room. “Listening to (other families') stories, I don’t even dare complain,” Garcia-Gonzalez said as she noted the many traumatic ordeals others are facing, many of which do not have as hopeful a prognosis. “We’re here, we’re fighting and we have hope. So I’m not complaining about anything,” she said.

How You Can Help

Garcia-Gonzalez thanked her family in Puerto Rico and her best friend, Lorraine Gibbs, for her support during the ordeal, while Mary thanked her best friend, Elsa Aubin. “She was by my side the whole time,” said Mary, who hopes to celebrate her birthday with Elsa and many other friends at her quinceañera in September. The family plans to host the celebration a few days before Mary's 16th birthday, Sept. 24; Mary, with a grin, noted she's still technically eligible for presents two days that week.

Adams — well-known for his philanthropic work in the face of his own tragedy, the loss of three family members in a 2021 Worcester fire — is collecting donations for the celebration. Cash or checks made payable to Maryangelie Paola Rivas can be sent to his nonprofit, 508 Forever Young Inc., at PO Box 1138, Worcester, MA 01613. Adams will also present Mary and her family with his Adams Strong award at his annual backpack drive Saturday, Aug. 2, at Chandler Elementary Community School.

Garcia-Gonzalez said while her family is honored by the recognition, there are so many “unsung heroes” who help those in need who also deserve praise. She thanked all those in the Worcester and Leicester communities raising money to help her put on her daughter’s birthday bash. She’s rented out a space, is making decorations herself and is trying to make the Rapunzel-themed party as special as she can. “It’s a lot and it could be very expensive,” she said, adding that she is praying Mary — who is still on more than a dozen medications as she continues treatment — will still be out of the hospital. “We’re going to make it happen, one way or another,” she said. “To make her dream come true.”