LEWISTON — The seventh-annual “Bid For Wishes” virtual auction, hosted by Fontaine Family — The Real Estate Leader, is to be held on its Facebook business page June 14-21.

Along with Make-A-Wish Maine, this year’s auction will also benefit Emersyn “Emmy” Rowles, a 15-year-old girl in grade 9 at Lewiston High School. Rowles was 3 when she was diagnosed with a rare, neurodegenerative disease called Ataxia Telangectasia. Those with AT run a higher risk (1,000 times) of cancer, mostly leukemias and lymphomas.

After experiencing unfamiliar health issues in 2019, she was diagnosed with a rare, aggressive form of Leukemia called MPAL — a combination of both Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia and Acute Myloid Leukemia.

For most of 2020, she received multiple, sometimes back-to-back, bone marrow transplants from her brother, but fell into the pattern of being in remission with relapse every other biopsy. The goal was to continue treatment that would keep her cancer at bay while providing quality of life, but her current treatment was not effective anymore.

She is at Boston Children’s Hospital starting a new clinical trial consisting of two chemotherapies. While the doctors feel at this time they can’t cure her cancer, her family remains hopeful that she will beat it. The money she receives from Fontaine’s auction event will go towards a tropical, dream vacation so she can enjoy what she loves most — the beach and swimming.

Since 2009, starting with Walk for Wishes, each year the entire Fontaine Family Team participates in their largest fundraising event benefiting Make-A-Wish Maine, and has been able to raise enough money to grant the wishes of eight seriously ill Maine children. In 2013, Fontaine expanded its efforts by creating Bid for Wishes, an online virtual auction event collecting 200-300 donated items from local business owners to be auctioned off. Its last online auction event was in 2019, when it was able to collect more than 225 items and raise more than $11,000. The auction was cancelled in 2020 because of the pandemic.

People can donate an item to be auctioned on Fontaine’s Facebook silent auction event. To donate, call 207-784-3800 (Auburn location), 207-289-3830 (Scarborough location), or email info@fontaineteam.com.

To make a bid, visit Fontaine’s Facebook Business Page during the week of June 14 to 21. All items up for bid will be put in an album for easy access and viewing. Bids will be accepted starting at noon June 14 and all bidding will end at noon June 21.

All winners will be contacted via Facebook messenger. To make a donation, send a check made payable to Make-A-Wish Maine to Fontaine Team, 336 Center St., Auburn, ME 04210, attention: Bid For Wishes 2021.

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