SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 Nancy Baumann has been a Scranton police officer for 25 years, but her world came crashing down after a diagnosis in November of 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the moment when they told me, it was unreal,” Baumann recalled, talking through a mask. “You know, it was like, I thought I was having a nightmare.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was MDS, a blood cancer. For the last year and a half, she\u2019s lived with practically no immune system and although she\u2019s in remission, her life has completely changed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t be six feet toward people like, that\u2019s as far as I can get,” Baumann explained. “They can\u2019t hug me. You know, I haven\u2019t had hugs from people in, you know, a year and a half It\u2019s really had when you’re used to being around people and interacting and stuff and getting hugs all the time, you know, it\u2019s hard not to do that.”<\/p>\n
But her community wouldn\u2019t let her fight it alone.<\/p>\n
For the last few weeks, other Scranton cops have been planning a fundraiser for Baumann, and today, hundreds streamed in throughout the day to buy a pasta dinner and basket raffle tickets, every dollar going to her bills and expenses as she continues treatment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith everybody that was here today we, you know, we just didn\u2019t expect this many people to come out and support Nancy, but it\u2019s been tremendous and it really has been overwhelming in such a great way,” said Jill Foley, another Scranton police officer that organized the event. “We can\u2019t say thank you enough. It\u2019s been since we started planning this, everybody has been terrific, and it\u2019s just been I don\u2019t even have words. It\u2019s been awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n
And the whole time, standing behind the bar, was the woman of the hour. Handing out fist bumps and talking with the droves that came to wish her well and support her in her fight.<\/p>\n
To Baumann, it was unbelievable.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw all the baskets and that was overwhelming,” said Baumann. “You know, now I\u2019m seeing people that, I mean some people I don\u2019t even know! It\u2019s amazing. It\u2019s amazing. There\u2019s no words. There\u2019s absolutely no words I mean, I\u2019ve always been there for people and now people are there for me, and I never expected it like this, at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
The event won\u2019t affect her affliction, but now, she knows she can fight harder than ever before, with a community that has her back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 Nancy Baumann has been a Scranton police officer for 25 years, but her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170432,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-170431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}