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Agave benefit for Finn: Vail Valley teen calls cancer fight ‘rare, special’

Agave in Avon is hosting a benefit April 25 for Finn Mott, a local 14-year old who is battling what may be cancer.
Special to the Daily |

If You Go …

What: Benefit for Finn Mott.

When: Tuesday, April 25; tacos from 5 to 10 p.m., and band starts around 9 p.m.

Where: Agave, 1060 W. Beaver Creek Blvd., Avon, across the street from Beaver Creek’s Bear Lot.

Cost: Give until it feels good.

More information: Finn is a local 14-year-old. An MRI found a number of tumors in his body. Contact Agave at 970-748-8666.

AVON — Finn Mott was looking forward to a Lake Powell spring break trip when a visit to the doctor changed his plans and his life.

An MRI found two tumors on his brain and a few others in his 14-year-old body.

“I want to tell everyone who has been supporting me since my diagnosis and have helped me through the challenges I have faced so far: thank you,” Mott said in a message on his GoFundMe page. “I am only a 14-year-old boy who was dealt a more unique, challenging hand. I realize that what I have is, and can be considered, horrible, torture and be sorrowful. I, however, feel that my condition is not only a rare happening, but a special happening.”



A benefit is scheduled for tonight at Agave in Avon, across U.S. Highway 6 from Beaver Creek’s Bear Lot.

Richard Wheelock, owner of Agave and La Cantina, and his staff are donating every dime spent to Mott’s family. Agave keeps nothing, not even to cover their costs, not in the restaurant and not in the bar.

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“Everyone is pitching in. Every dollar that is spent is being handed over. Even the band is playing for free,” Wheelock said. “We want to help people when they need it.”

Mott is an MVP soccer player, outstanding skier and strong student who won a STEM contest when he designed and built a Rube Goldberg machine to turn the pages of a book.

Finn support group

“Instead of dreading cancer, I have learned to accept it,” Mott wrote. “It has created me to be more special and have more character. It was extremely hard for me to learn this.”

For a week and a half after his diagnosis, he woke up in the morning and cried, he wrote.

“Slowly but surely, people I barely knew and some I knew well started to reach out and help me in ways I have never experienced before. Masses of people started to help me in huge ways,” Mott wrote.

The number of people who visited him in the hospital was “unreal,” Finn wrote. Some of his school friends changed the name of their chat group from “Nerd Squad” to “Finn Support Group,” he wrote.

“I have friends and support that will always be there for me. I am very lucky and blessed to have such a group of friends,” Mott wrote.

Staff Writer Randy Wyrick can be reached at 970-748-2935 and rwyrick@vaildaily.com.


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