As Jefri Leonardi was losing her 12-year-old daughter to cancer, she also lost her job.

Leonardi doesn’t want to name the employer or go into details, but at one point she had to choose between going to work and spending time with her dying daughter, Heather.

It was an easy choice. However, it meant one less paycheck at a time when Leonardi’s family’s expenses already were stretched by medical bills and trips to Kansas City.

Two years after Heather’s death from non-Hodgkins lymphoma, Leonardi and a group of supporters are helping raise money for other parents who find themselves in the same situation.

Proceeds from the third annual “Heather’s Run” Saturday will go to a relief fund at Children’s Mercy Hospital, Kansas City, Mo., that helps families meet the costs of having a young cancer patient.

“I don’t want them to be worried about it,” said Leonardi.

This is the third year of the race. In 2001, two of Heather’s teachers conceived the race as a way to help Leonardi’s family, but it broadened in the second year to benefit the Children’s Mercy fund.

Much of the help organizing this year’s race came from members of Leonardi’s church, St. Margaret’s Episcopal. All the expenses associated with this year’s race — including medals, insurance, advertisements and brochures — have been donated.

Leonardi said she didn’t want to give the amount raised in last year’s run, but she said it was “enough to help several families.”

Heather Leonardi, 12, who died of cancer, inspired Heather's Run.

“I want to be able to supply some money. I’ve been there,” Leonardi said. “I know what it’s like.”

So do Tricia and Trey Venters of Lawrence.

When they entered last year’s “Heather’s Run,” they didn’t know they were raising money for themselves.

They had planned to walk with their 3-year-old daughter Emily during the race’s one-mile family walk. Surprisingly, she was too tired, and Tricia ended up carrying her most of the way.

About two weeks later came the diagnosis that Emily had leukemia. In the year that followed, they made more than 60 trips back and forth between Lawrence and Children’s Mercy. They often stayed overnight, which meant they had to buy meals out.

Insurance didn’t cover all of their pharmacy costs. At times, steroids made Emily hungry for superhuman quantities of pizza.

By the end of the year, they’d received a check from the Children’s Mercy relief fund.

Tricia Venters said that her family’s needs weren’t as great as other families’, and she said her husband initially thought they couldn’t accept the check. Still, she said, they were grateful for the support.

“We were touched by the fact that people had thought about us,” she said. “We were feeling like we could go get that pizza… I feel kind of guilty, because for some families I know that (getting a check would mean) they could buy milk.”

Emily’s cancer went into remission a week after she began treatment, and so far she hasn’t had any relapses. She continues chemotherapy for an additional 15 months.

From that point on, she must make monthly trips to Children’s Mercy for monitoring. If all goes well for five years, she’ll officially be labeled a survivor, her mother said.