A familiar face for WWL-TV viewers is using his talents to bring a doctor to Louisiana to help treat children with brain cancer.
Artist, former news anchor and WWL Radio talk show host Garland Robinette knows how lucky he was to have options when it came to his healthcare.
"In the past, I had big health problems. I had to go all the way to Minnesota to get the very best treatment," Robinette said.
But not everybody has that opportunity. Children with brain cancer in Louisiana have to travel to Houston or Birmingham to see the closest specialists, putting tremendous costs and burdens on families to leave home when they most need support.
That’s why Robinette is donating a portion of the proceeds from his art to the Kelsey Bradley Favrot memorial 5k Run/Walk.
Favrot was the mother of four children, only in her 40s when a brain tumor took her life. Two years ago, the fundraiser in her honor helped bring Dr. Aaron Mammoser, the only fellowship trained neuro-oncologist for adults in region.
This year, the 5k is raising money to bring a pediatric neuro-oncologist to LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans.
"It's a very different approach in an adult than it is in a child (with brain cancer.) The treatments are different. The side effects are different and the biology's very different," Dr. Mammoser explained.
Garland Robinette hopes his contribution helps the cause and brings some good juju his way.
"I grew up in the swamp. My mother was extremely Cajun and my name was Ti Rob, Little Rob, so she was, 'Mon Cher, Ti Rob, that was good juju,' when I did something good," Garland said.
On his latest folk art series with the juju good luck doll, he painted a tiger and football, and is donating a portion of the proceeds from the prints and original to the cause.
"So we thought, 'Good luck juju' and the good they're trying to do, combines," he said.
To get the tiger juju art Click here.: Original on clay board $950/ Giclee (print on canvas) $350/ Print on paper $95.
To register for the October 7 Kelsey Bradley Favrot 5K run/walk, click here.