Help Choony Lee Fight Against Cancer
Donation protected
This fundraiser has been re-started in a new campaign with a recent update from Choony due to changes in the GoFundMe server - please fine the new campaign to donate here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/friends-of-choony-round-2 - thank you, everyone!
On June 22, Choony Lee joined Soh Daiko on stage for its 40th Anniversary Concert. Her all-out, unforgettable performance was that much more inspiring for the few who knew she had been battling stage IV cancer for two years and that it had recurred shortly before the concert.
Deferring treatment to join in this monumental event, Choony is now scheduled for surgery on July 10, in the hopes that a surgical approach will remove the cancer while avoiding another prolonged series of chemotherapy treatments.
Teddy Yoshikami, a close friend of Choony’s for more than 30 years, along with other current and former Soh Daiko members started this GoFundMe campaign to ease the financial burden on the family. Choony’s husband Toshi had to stop working to care for her and their children, and they’ve already depleted their savings. Esme is about to start high school, Colette is heading to Maryland Institute College of Art, and Connor is living overseas. The funds collected here will pay for future medical costs and general living expenses for all of them, so Choony is able to focus on her health and the girls can focus on school. Any amount will help.
As anyone who knows her is well aware, Choony has a huge and beautiful heart and gives with abandon to her family, her friends, her children’s schools, and the taiko community. Choony was an active member of Soh Daiko for 15 years, from 1989 to 2004. Toshi had also joined Soh Daiko, so he and Choony could reach their full performance potential together. Choony has continued to stay involved with taiko, visiting and offering guidance during Soh Daiko practices and teaching children’s classes. She has played a big part in making Soh Daiko the group it is today.
Please join those who love this amazing woman to help her continue to be the vibrant human she is and continue to play taiko with joy and abandon.
As she wrote to her fellow #SohDaiko40 performers, “It is a big operation but one that I feel I can face and overcome to be cancer free, strengthened by our having come all together. For that I am eternally grateful even if I only was to have one more day, but to have drummed with you all, to have expressed the best of human kind.”
On June 22, Choony Lee joined Soh Daiko on stage for its 40th Anniversary Concert. Her all-out, unforgettable performance was that much more inspiring for the few who knew she had been battling stage IV cancer for two years and that it had recurred shortly before the concert.
Deferring treatment to join in this monumental event, Choony is now scheduled for surgery on July 10, in the hopes that a surgical approach will remove the cancer while avoiding another prolonged series of chemotherapy treatments.
Teddy Yoshikami, a close friend of Choony’s for more than 30 years, along with other current and former Soh Daiko members started this GoFundMe campaign to ease the financial burden on the family. Choony’s husband Toshi had to stop working to care for her and their children, and they’ve already depleted their savings. Esme is about to start high school, Colette is heading to Maryland Institute College of Art, and Connor is living overseas. The funds collected here will pay for future medical costs and general living expenses for all of them, so Choony is able to focus on her health and the girls can focus on school. Any amount will help.
As anyone who knows her is well aware, Choony has a huge and beautiful heart and gives with abandon to her family, her friends, her children’s schools, and the taiko community. Choony was an active member of Soh Daiko for 15 years, from 1989 to 2004. Toshi had also joined Soh Daiko, so he and Choony could reach their full performance potential together. Choony has continued to stay involved with taiko, visiting and offering guidance during Soh Daiko practices and teaching children’s classes. She has played a big part in making Soh Daiko the group it is today. Please join those who love this amazing woman to help her continue to be the vibrant human she is and continue to play taiko with joy and abandon.
As she wrote to her fellow #SohDaiko40 performers, “It is a big operation but one that I feel I can face and overcome to be cancer free, strengthened by our having come all together. For that I am eternally grateful even if I only was to have one more day, but to have drummed with you all, to have expressed the best of human kind.”
Organizer
Friends of Choony
Organizer
New York, NY