Community Corner

Skin & Bones' Erica Melone Wants a Different Kind of Treatment

The owner of the Little Silver day spa and Oceanport resident is among three women in New Jersey in the run for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Man & Woman of the Year.

Erica Melone says that what helped push her "over the edge" in making her decision whether to throw her hat into the ring to compete for Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Man & Woman of the Year was the incentive to have a treatment named after someone.

"I absolutely want to give that to my late father-in-law," says the Oceanport resident whose late father-in-law Bob Brummer lost his battle with leukemia two years ago. "To think there wasn’t any cure for him has haunted me since," adds Melone, who owns Skin and Bones Day Spa in Little Silver.

"To those of you that knew Bob Brummer, you know he was taken from us way to soon. His absence is obvious to our community. His family remembers him with so many funny stories from fishing, to the tree business (Brummer's Tree Service in Oceanport) to just loving his wife Judy and his 4 sons that worked along side of him for ever! He loved every single person in his family and his 4 grand daughters miss their Poppy like you wouldn’t believe. I always laugh when I say it, but Bob would give you the shirt off of his back, literally. To all of you that were his friend, the stories you have all shared and the ones he told us about all of you are just priceless. You help keep his memory alive," Melone, who is one of three women competing in the state, writes on her Leukemia & Lymphoma Society fundraising page.

Find out what's happening in Little Silver-Oceanportwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Although every dollar Melone raises will count as a vote towards becoming the man or woman or the year, she says she's more focused on the money. "My goal is to raise $50,000, so that I will have the ability to name a research project after Bob," Melone says. "I would love nothing more."

Fundraising begins April 4 and runs through June 15 and Melone says she'll be hosting all sorts of events, auctions, raffles, a potential golf outing, charter fishing trip, and even a few bands have agreed to play to raise money for the effort.

Find out what's happening in Little Silver-Oceanportwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

You can visit Melone's fundraising page here and the Facebook page for the contest here.

"LLS's continued advancements over the years are responsible for the blood cancer survival rate doubling and tripling; in some cases, the survival rate has even quadrupled," she writes on her page. "I always think about the families with children suffering from these horrible diseases I can’t imagine the worry. We want to help!"


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