Sunday’s ‘World’s Largest Tailgate’ in Cheektowaga will bring awareness to Glioblastoma

CHEEKTOWAGA, NY (WIVB) — Kevin Powers’ brother Gary, was huge a Buffalo Bills and tailgating fan. After his three-and-a-half year battle with Glioblastoma, a form of brain cancer, Gary passed away in June of last year.

Kevin is keeping Gary’s legacy alive by helping others that are facing similar battles with the disease.

“Just to have a legacy and something that we can kind of go back to and just celebrate, because he was definitely the life of a party,” said Kevin Powers.

The Gary Powers foundation focuses on raises money for Glioblastoma research, trips of a lifetime for families of patients, and financial aid and support for families and individuals that are going through and fighting the disease.

On Sunday from noon until 4 p.m. at Knights Event Center in Cheektowaga, the foundation is holding what they call the “World’s Largest Tailgate Party” for the second time. Proceeds from this year’s event will help Keith Trode and his medical bills.

Trode is a former brick layer from South Buffalo, and in the past six months started to experience some health issues, with his vision, memory and then he started getting migraines and ear plugging.

Doctors originally believed it was temporomandibular joint dysfunction and then one day it got worse.

“There was a Saturday or Sunday, I was with my wife, and we were driving somewhere and I was driving and she goes, are you going to get on the exit, and I said what exit?” Keith said. “My vision just got really bad that day.”

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Then the next day, when he started getting nauseous, he decided to return to Urgent Care, where they eventually sent him to go to the Emergency Room.

“The lady at the emergency room was really nice. There was no panic, you think migraines, my wife have migraines so there were like okay we’ll do a CT,” said Trode.

And then after the CT scan, the nurse came back and told Trode they were going to admit him into the hospital, because they found a large mass on his brain.

“Life just switched,” said Trode.

His doctors conducted a surgery to remove the cancerous tumor from his brain, and he was diagnosed with Glioblastoma and now he’s currently in treatment.

“The biggest challenge is me doing my part, with all of my children and wife and people who care for me, they have their struggles seeing me different,” said Trode. “My thing is that I try to think positively, every day is just a blessing and I can’t control what the disease does, I can control what I can do.”

Trode has six children, a wife and an entire support system of his family, friends, and healthcare professionals that he says have all been wonderful.

“So many people have been supportive, it’s been an amazing feeling, I’m not used to that, I’m more of a giver not a receiver,” said Trode. “I’m not afraid of the death, it’s the fear of people who suffer who you left behind.”

He says whatever they might not use for medical bills, will be passed on to the next person to help with their costs.

Trode said during this whole experience the thing he’s learned is that everyone has their own battles.

“This is my battle, but we all have battles and to response everybody’s battle and give everybody a little more grace on understanding what we’re going through because we call handle things differently,” said Trode.

For more information on the event click here.

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Hope Winter is a reporter and multimedia journalist who has been part of the News 4 team since 2021. See more of her work here.

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