Clay Marine, NFL player carry out fundraiser for couple
By Gary Lloyd
It is a Clay Marine’s mission plan, and a Clay NFL player’s game plan.
It is called Operation Baby-Que, a fundraiser to help Norm and Ashley Handley, a Springville couple, raise money for an in vitro fertilization cycle, a $12,000 treatment not covered by insurance in Alabama. The process includes eggs being fertilized outside Ashley Handley’s body, taken care of by embryologists before being transferred back to her.
The couple, married since October 2010, knew about their infertility before marrying. They also know there is no guarantee the in vitro fertilization will give them a son or daughter.
“We knew we were going to do whatever we had to,” said Norm Handley, 40, a Birmingham firefighter for 14 years.
The couple, dating since 2008, told just close family members about the infertility at first. They eventually spoke with close friends about it over the past two years. One of those close friends, Jonny Cates — who is a Marine — and his wife, Heather, the couple met in Sunday school at NorthPark Baptist Church in Trussville about a year ago.
From left are Travis Woods (sitting), Jonny Cates and Quinton Dial.
photo courtesy of Operation Baby-Que
Sometime after Easter of this year, Norm Handley had lunch with Cates, telling him about how IVF seemed to be the best option. Cates wanted to help, and came up with the fundraiser, which was last Monday and Tuesday at NorthPark, where Boston butts were cooked in a black smoker and sold, and former Clay-Chalkville and University of Alabama defensive end Quinton Dial signed white footballs and wall posters.
“They’re our friends, and I love helping people,” said Cates, a 2003 Clay-Chalkville High School graduate who met Dial through NorthPark. “I enjoy doing it.”
Cates last month asked Dial, now an NFL defensive end with the San Francisco 49ers, if he’d be interested in helping promote the fundraiser by signing autographs. Dial, who also met Cates through NorthPark, agreed.
Ashley and Norm Handley
photo courtesy of Ashley Handley
“I just enjoy helping people, seeing people smile,” said Dial, a 2009 Clay-Chalkville High School graduate. “It just puts joy in my heart. It’s just the right thing to do.”
The goal was to sell 500 Boston butts and raise $10,000. The exact amount raised was not known at press time. There could be another Boston butt fundraiser for the couple around Labor Day weekend.
“We just prayed and prayed (for how to raise the money),” said Ashley Handley, 27, a teacher at Restoration Academy in Fairfield. “We were just overwhelmed when Jonny and Heather approached us. We just really knew it was an answer to prayer.”
Norm Handley, who has two sons — Logan and Skylar — from a previous relationship, said he wouldn’t have been able to think of a fundraiser like Cates did.
“It’s an absolute blessing,” he said. “It’s the Lord that’s doing it, He’s just using Jonny to carry it out.”
While Cates and Travis Woods last Monday cooked barbecue good enough to make Dreamland jealous, Dial signed red and white footballs for little boys in crimson shirts, autographed a poster for an Alabama student who took one of the same college classes he did, showed off his SEC Championship and BSC National Championship rings big enough to swallow an average man’s fingers.
Dial said it was an easy decision to do what he could to help the Handleys.
“Me being in the situation I’m in, people helped me get to where I am today, so I will help people whenever I can because God has put people in my life to help me get to where I’m at today, so I’m going to return the favor of helping other people,” he said.
Ashley Handley said she can’t explain how much she wants to be a mother. She said if and when the funds for the IVF cycle are raised, she and Norm will not tell friends and family when they begin the cycle. They have a date in mind when they would like to begin, but they’re not telling because if they end up pregnant, they want to deliver the surprise to family and church friends in person or on Facebook or at a party, like most couples do.
Norm Handley, who has been attending NorthPark for nearly a decade, met Ashley there about five years ago. They became friends, began dating in 2008 and got married in 2010.
“It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” he said.
Contact Gary Lloyd at news@trussvilletribune.com and follow him on Twitter @GaryALloyd.
