Dartmouth business raising money for Taunton family dealing with sudden cancer diagnosis

DARTMOUTH, Mass. (WLNE) — A small business in Dartmouth is making a big effort to help a family in need.

Kara Magoni is the owner of Lily Pad Boutique on Route 6, and said her friend Lorienn Higgins recently got some devastating news.

“We got this word over the weekend that Lorienn’s son has been diagnosed with lymphoma,” Magoni said.

With 21-year-old Dyllan Higgins now fighting for his life in a Boston hospital, Magoni said Lorienn has been struggling to keep the family afloat.

“Every day she’s driven back to Taunton to take one or another of her kids to work and driven back to the Boston hospital to be with Dyllan,” Magoni said. “Because he’s terrified, and then coming back in the evening to pick the kids up from work.”

With just one working car to go between Lorienn and her five children, Magoni had an idea to ease the burden.

“I thought that possibly we could get together and find a cheap car,” she said. “So that Lorienn can stay by Dyllan’s side and not be worrying about all the other kids getting back-and-forth to their jobs.”

Lorienn supplies vintage jewelry to Lily Pad Boutique, and Magoni said, moving forward, 100% of jewelry sales will go directly to the Higgins family.

“A lot of our customers really love her and her jewelry,” Magoni said. “So I figured I’d let our friends know that she’s in need of help right now.”

Magoni has taken the time to set up an online fundraiser as well, adding, while she is usually not open on Mondays or Tuesdays, she plans to do whatever it takes to help her friend’s family.

“They’re good people, they’ve always worked very hard for their community and their church,” Magoni said. “So I really thought it’s important that people show up for others like that, when they show up for people.”

The GoFundMe to donate to Dyllan’s family can be found here, and Magoni said people can also donate to lillylightstheway.org.