Someone has the purse.
It is big, black and stuffed with gift cards, some cash and Kennedy Bougher’s cellphone. But that is the least of it.
No, what the big black purse also contains are the hopes and dreams of dozens of young people battling childhood cancer.
The purse belongs to Stacy Moriarty, 41, who founded the Miracle Party Foundation three years ago after her daughter, Kennedy, 12, completed treatment for osteosarcoma, a malignant bone cancer that cost the girl three ribs.
Come Saturday, she will host the second annual Miracle Party at the Crowne Plaza Hotel on East 40th Avenue. It is an evening devoted to remembering the children lost to cancer and to giving about two dozen kids battling the disease a night to remember.
She went to the Wal-Mart at Chambers and South Parker roads in Aurora on Saturday night to finish purchasing sodas, Spider-Man and Superman stickers and assorted other items for the party.
“I had my three redheads with me,” she said — Kennedy; Kerrigan, 11; and Kaden, 5. She had just picked up donations and ticket-sale money for the party that another cancer family had collected. And then, a pack of soda fell off the cart as she and the kids loaded the van.
It was crazy in the parking lot, she recalled. Did she set her purse on the ground or on the step into the van? Anyway, she drove off.
She arrived home 15 minutes later. Where was her purse?
“I started bawling,” Stacy Moriarty said. “At that moment, all the tears came out.”
She and her friend, David, raced back to Wal- Mart. No one had turned the purse in. She called the police.
“The officer was nice but said the security tape was not going to help,” she said. “I told him my purse was huge! He said the quality of the tape was not good and that we had parked in a blind spot.”
The purse was gone.
Whoever has it, she says, must know it is not just another purse. She wants the person to know what is at stake.
Last year, the party raised $15,000 at a silent auction for three cancer groups that assist police officers and children.
This year, she said, the event will be even bigger, with families of childhood cancer patients flying in from across the country. Go to if you want to see the faces and read the stories.
“My hope, personally, is that there is still some goodness left in human beings, that our community, which doesn’t want to talk about cancer, would realize that these are children honoring their friends who have passed away, that it would support the innocent, awesome children still with us,” Stacy Moriarty said.
She doesn’t care about her “stuff,” she said.
“The other things in there — that is for the children,” she said. “It is a purse with a purpose. Whoever has it, I don’t know how they can sleep at night.”
Since Kennedy was diagnosed with cancer, her mom has known 25 to 30 children who have passed away.
“I’ve been to 21 funerals,” she said. “This is not going to stop me. Saturday will be a night for these children to forget cancer, to party and be free.”
All of the credit cards and checks have been canceled. If you’ve got the purse, fling it into the Aurora Police Department lobby.
Anyone else with a mind to can stop by a Key Bank and ask to contribute to the Miracle Party Foundation. Don’t let the thieving knucklehead win this one.
Bill Johnson writes Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Reach him at 303-954-2763 or wjohnson@denverpost.com.
