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Pittsburgh-Area Teacher Throws Surprise Ice Cream Party For 11-Year-Old Student Battling Cancer

NATRONA HEIGHTS, Pa. (KDAK) -- The coronavirus pandemic is making people feel isolated, but many families are facing a different kind of challenge.

Take the Lookabaughs, for example. Camden Lookabaugh, 11, is in remission from leukemia and his dad has early-onset Parkinson's disease.

Camden Lookabaugh can't do in-person learning at school, so what did his teacher do? Tammy Buhr brought the classroom to Camden.

icecream
(Photo Credit: KDKA)

The sixth-grade class from Harvest Baptist Academy in Natrona Heights took a field trip to Harrison Hills Park to surprise Camden with an ice cream party. The kids hid among the playground equipment and surprised Camden when he arrived.

"He's on homebound schooling. She doesn't have to do anything and she goes above and beyond in every single way. And just to see all the kids so excited to see him and see how excited he was to be a normal part of the class was just amazing," said Camden's mother Chrissy Lookabaugh.

"That's the one thing COVID has done, it's isolated people," said Buhr. "So the best thing we thought we could do is try to bring them together and play like kids usually do this time of year, except we have our masks on and we're social distancing."

Camden was surprised, indeed. He was humbled, too.

"It means a lot because I haven't seen them in a really long time," he said.

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