TRABUCO CANYON : Community Rallies to Support Family

When Debbie Vlad was first diagnosed with brain cancer, the 38-year-old woman and her husband, Jeff Vlad, opted for privacy.

For a year, the Vlads fought a private battle--only close friends and family knew Debbie was ill. For a while, the family seemed to be winning as the cancer went into remission.

But now the disease is back and the Vlads must deal again with all the fears and troubles associated with cancer.

Only this time, they won’t be fighting alone. Learning of their plight, the Vlads’ Robinson Ranch community has reached out to the family, virtually adopting all five of its members.

A 40-year-old carpenter, Jeff Vlad these days doesn’t have to worry about cutting his work short in the evenings. Every afternoon, a neighbor picks up his son and daughter from elementary school and brings them home. The other child is not yet of school age.

Later on, someone else drops by carrying a home-cooked dinner for the family. Debbie Vlad is bedridden.

To help with the back-breaking medical expenses, the community is hosting several fund-raisers.

One of the events is “Vlad Family Spirit Days,” during which discount coupons are available for Monkey Bar Inc. in the Mission Viejo Mall.

A play area where parents can drop off their kids while shopping, Monkey Bars is offering $1 off on the normal $5.95 admission. They will donate another $1 from each admission to the Vlad family.

A recent bake sale netted $570 for the family, a figure that astounded Vicky Cary, who is organizing the fund-raising efforts.

“I asked them, ‘Did you have Sara Lee there signing muffins?’ ” said Cary, the PTA president at Trabuco Elementary School, where the oldest Vlad child attends fourth grade. “I’ve done enough bake sales to know that people were opening their wallets, giving cash and saying, ‘Keep the change.’ ”

It has taken some time for Jeff Vlad, a proud, independent man, to accept the idea of receiving help from others.

“I’m one of those stubborn Midwesterners,” he said. “But I’ve finally got it through my thick head that there’s more to life than being stubborn.”

The response, he said, “has been great in the day and age when things seem so impersonal. What’s amazed me the most is the quantity of people who are concerned about us.

“There’s people I would see at one of my kids’ functions who I just knew by name and complete strangers who I’ve never laid eyes on” who are lending their assistance.

Jeff Vlad figures it’s the rural atmosphere of Robinson Ranch, which sits below the Saddleback Mountains, between Rancho Santa Margarita and Trabuco Canyon.

Cary agrees: “We have a real small-town mentality around here. Only 270 kids go to (Trabuco Elementary School), which has chickens running around the playground.”

“Everybody knows each other,” she said. “I guess the bottom line is we take care of our own.”

Donations can be sent to a Vlad Family Spirit trust account through Trabuco Elementary School, P.O. Box 277, Trabuco Canyon, Calif. 92678.