The Nicholls chapter of the National Student Speech Language Hearing Association presented a check on Wednesday to help MAX Charter School student Blake Brazon’s family cover his medical expenses.

Blake, a third grader who was previously a speech therapy client with the members of the Communicative Disorders program at Nicholls, was born with leukemia but recently relapsed. The NSSLHA donated $300 to help with his family with the cancer treatments.

Barbara Blake, instructor and faculty advisor for NSSLHA said, “We’ve been servicing Max Charter through the clinic since the school opened. Students at Max Charter, any of them that need communication therapy, we service with our students.”

Each semester the club chooses to do something philanthropic, often with a national organization. Blake said it was nice to give back on the local level. Since the organization works so closely with the school, they felt it was an appropriate way to use the funds raised through their bake sales, t-shirt sales, and dues.

“As a baby he had leukemia and it went into remission and then we found out last semester that his leukemia returned,” Blake said. “We’ve been keeping track of him and they have lots of fundraising for him at Max. It’s interesting to see at Max Charter how the students are still so involved with him. I think they Skype him and he gets to keep in touch with his classmates.”

Jaci Poirrier, a communicative disorders senior from Paulina, worked with Blake while he attended the Max Charter School.

“Blake is one of those children with a fun and outgoing personality that you cannot help but smile when you’re around them,” Poirrier said. “I never knew what to expect from him, which always made our sessions fun and entertaining.”