The former owners of a French bakery in North Raleigh are holding a bake sale Saturday to raise money for their son’s cancer treatment.

Isabelle and Denis Blanco are the former owners of Gourmandises de France, a bakery they owned on Creedmoor Road from 2000 to 2007. Their 20-year-old son, Sylvain, was diagnosed two years ago with Ewing sarcoma, a rare form of cancer. With treatment, he got better. Last year, he got his GED from Wake Technical Community College and planned to study to become an oncology nurse.

Two-and-a-half weeks ago, doctors found that the cancer had returned; this time in his lungs, says his mom, Isabelle Blanco (who is pictured above in the couple's shop.) The family found treatment available in France, where they are from originally, and have sent him there.

The family’s friends and those in the Triangle’s French community are coming together to help the couple raise money with a bake sale starting at 10 a.m. Saturday outside the couple’s Wake Forest home. Sosta Cafe is donating brownies. La Farm Bakery in Cary is donating pastries. And Denis Blanco, who was the pastry chef at the couple’s bakery, will be making crepes. There also will be face painting for children and a raffle.

“It’s going to be a big huge picnic in solidarity for a sick child,” Isabelle Blanco says.

The bake sale starts at 10 a.m. Saturday on the front lawn of the Blancos’ home at 3600 Trawden Dr., Wake Forest.

The Upper Room Christian Academy Annual Fund Tournament will be held at 8:30 a.m. June 4 at the Lonnie Poole Golf Course on N.C. State's Centennial Campus in Raleigh.

The entry fee is $85. Contact John Amanchukwu at 919-829-6199, or visit www.urcafund.org.

*** Find more golf tournaments and other charity events, plus summer camps and leagues, in the expanded online edition of the Play! Recreational Sports Calendar. ***

Twenty-two parent-child teams turned out to compete in the Triangle Tarheels Basketball Club’s Mother-Daughter, Father-Daughter Tournament at Youngsville Elementary School in Youngsville.

The double-elimination, two-on-two competition, a fundraiser for the nonprofit team, featured girls ages 9-17 competing with a parent or a mentor, Tarheels coach Ahmad Smalls said.

The Big Kick was a big success.

More than 500 youths and volunteer coaches from 55 teams in the A.E. Finley YMCA’s soccer program raised $4,290 to help less fortunate families.

Led by the A.E. Finley sports staff, the Big Kick program ended Sept. 25. For six weeks, players learned about teamwork, sportsmanship and philanthropy while raising money for less privileged children ...

Have fun and support a great cause tonight by heading to AMF Capital Lanes in Raleigh.

From 6:30 to 9 p.m., the nonprofit Raleigh Jaycees Community Impact Fund will conduct the sixth annual Bowl-A-Thon to raise money for the Wake County 4-H Camp Scholarship Program. Bowlers and spectators are welcome.

The action will be fast and beginner-friendly at the Raleigh Rugby Complex on Saturday as the Raleigh Rugby Football Club hosts its annual Charity Sevens tournament.
"Sevens" competition is a smaller, quicker version of the sport, club spokesman Brent Vaughn said. Instead of the usual 15 players per side, each team sends seven to the field, or pitch, and instead of the usual 40-minute halves, teams play seven-minute halves. The result is a family-friendly format that is ideal for introducing spectators to the game.
"Spectators can expect a very fast-paced, full-contact sport that they will be able to enjoy with people around the facility who are familiar with the sport and will be happy to explain," Vaughn said. 

Runners from Raleigh and Chapel Hill took home the titles and adoption
supporters took in more than $9,500 at the 10th annual Second Empire 5K
Classic, which was run on May 2 in downtown Raleigh.

The road race and related events, which included an expo with North
Carolina-based
adoption-related organizations, are conducted by the Second Empire
Restaurant and Tavern, which released the fundraising total on Tuesday.

Proceeds
will benefit the programs and services
provided by Hopeful
Parents, a nonprofit
organization that supports adoptive and birth families and assists
prospective parents, according to the event news release.

In what is very accurately called a grassroots effort, more than 1,000
tee times are up for public bid, giving recreational golfers in the
Carolinas a chance to play some elite private courses.

The foursome rounds - which can make great Father's Day or Mother's Day gifts - are being auctioned at Rounds4Research.com.

The purpose of the April 7-21 auction is to raise money for golf
turfgrass research, which includes outstanding research programs at
N.C. State and Clemson, according to an event news release.

Beautiful weather greeted runners for benefit road races in Raleigh and Durham on Saturday.

Bolt for the Blue 5K: Two veteran runners from Morehead City
topped the field of more than 280 runners and walkers who turned out
for the third annual Ligon GT Magnet Middle School benefit on a
beautiful morning. ...

newhope 5K – If the family that runs together, stays together, then the Mitchell family will be a close-knit group, Young said. Coleman Mitchell, 39, of Durham and his two sons took the top three spots Saturday at the third annual road race in Durham. ...

This track-out week is anything but a break for Austin Pittsley.

The seventh-grader at Lufkin Road Middle School in Apex has been busy
writing letters, making phone calls and putting up posters.

It's all to promote a wheelchair basketball event Friday featuring Lufkin Lightning players from his school and Junior Thunder
players from Bridge II Sports, a Durham-based nonprofit that provides adaptive and wheelchair sports opportunities in the Triangle.