Dairy Queen (DQ) hosted its first Family Fun Day at the Mall at Marathon on Thursday to raise money for the Bahamas Sickle Cell Association (BSCA).

The Family Fun Day had bouncing castles, face painting, games and musical performances.  According to DQ, $2 from every blizzard treat was donated to BSCA.

The illness hits home for the organization and is one of the reasons why DQ Operations Manager Crystal Campbell said the company partnered with BSCA. 

“This is important for DQ because at DQ we consider ourselves a family and we’re a very close knitted family because we’re a small group of persons. So this will be helping the persons that work with us,” Ms. Campbell explained.

“There’s an employee who has sickle cell and there’s another lady that works with us – her little brother has sickle cell as well too. So it’s close to our heart. We see the affects and hear the stories about the kids in our home.”  

BSCA Assistant Secretary Yale Rutherford sees this partnership as way to expose Bahamians to know more about the disease.  

“Most Bahamians aren’t aware of the factors that come along with having sickle cell. When you ask a Bahamian about sickle cell disease they normally say, ‘What’s that? When the red blood cell eats the red blood?’ and that’s not what it is at all,” Ms. Rutherford noted. 

She continued, “So today partnering along with Dairy Queen gives the Bahamas more of an idea of what it is. We just want to educate Bahamians on what it is exactly, what’s going on, and how you can help bring more awareness about the disease.” 

Over the past five years, DQ has donated almost $43,000 to children in need, specifically those with autism, cancer, diabetes, down syndrome and hearing impairments.