TOPSHAM

After working more than 40 years to keep the little Rusty’s store running, Rusty Rancourt could still be found behind the grill at the new Rusty’s Market, which opened in its footprint at 38 Middlesex Road in November 2012.

Rusty’s Market kept the name and is branded with Rusty’s own iconic likeness, wearing an apron with spatula in hand. People came in great numbers the first day the new store opened and Rancourt continued to enjoy interacting with the public. An entertainer, people came just to see him and hear what he had to say. He’d planned to keep working for store owner Jim Howard as long as he could.

But in October 2013 he was diagnosed with leukemia. He remembers he was at Parkview Adventist Medical Center in Brunswick when the doctor gave him the news. Rancourt had a rare form of leukemia. Fortunately he was a candidate for a study, which helped with costs as he underwent a battery of tests and rigorous treatments.

Within a few weeks, a 100 percent match was found through a national donor registry, so on Jan. 23, 2014, he underwent a bone marrow transplant at Mass General in Boston. Though his doctor now believes the cancer is gone, Rancourt will have a bone marrow biopsy April 1, which is the only way to know for sure.

On Wednesday, he said the 23 days he was in the hospital after the transplant felt like 23 months and “it was awful.” When he got home he couldn’t go anywhere for 100 days, essentially quarantined since his immune system was weakened.

Still, the bills arrive every single day and for the first time in 42 years he has no paycheck, so it’s been financially challenging, too.

“I’d rather be working, believe me,” Rancourt said.

When his best friend Gary Sagris called and asked if he and some friends could plan a fundraiser to help, Rancourt gave the go ahead. He said he knew if his friends wanted to do something to help, he couldn’t deny them.

Sagris said Rancourt has been his best friend for at least 50 years, and is like a brother to him. His friend opened the little Rusty’s store in 1971, a landmark for the area. After 40 years in a small community, he’s crossed paths with a lot of people, Sagris said.

“He treats everybody the same. We all put our shoes on the same way in the morning. He’s a good person and he’s a giving person,” Sagris said. Rancourt has helped many people, was always generous with donations for sports teams or causes. “He never said no.”

“I did service the community for 42 years and I gave a lot to the community,” Rancourt said, “but most of all I realized what the community gave to me. Every single day the community came through those doors and for me to make it all those years and never get shut down,” showed him how the community was truly there for him. “We couldn’t have asked for a better neighborhood than we were in.”

The fundraiser underway is something Rancourt would have never expected or asked for and “beyond anything we could ever imagine,” said Kathleen Bonang, who Rancourt calls the “apple of his eye.” She’s been Rancourt’s “better half” for 28 years, so his battle with cancer has certainly impacted them both.

Many community members and business people who have known Rancourt for years have united to help. In addition to starting a GoFundMe page, they have planned a benefit at Taste of Maine Restaurant in Woolwich this Sunday. The goal is to help offset Rancourt’s medical costs.

Rancourt has lost weight and struggles to have enough energy in the aftermath of his cancer treatment. But he is resting up for Sunday’s big event. It will be the first time he sees many members of the community since he got sick. He has family that he hasn’t seen in a long time coming from out of state as well.

To be surrounded by these people, Rancourt said, “It’s very, very important.”

“It’s going to be amazing,” said Bonang.

To watch someone you love battle a devastating illness like cancer, “It’s the one time in your life there is nothing you can do other than just be there, and that’s a very hard thing,” she said. “You have to believe in the medical (experts) beyond anything and you truly have to believe in God. And you hope the two connect.”

Since Rancourt got sick, Bonang said, “I’ve had more hands on my shoulder,” asking what they can do, people who have also had true sorrow and pain in their own lives. “Your heart is in their heart.”

Benefit dinner

When: Sunday, March 22, 2 to 6 p.m.
Where: Taste of Maine Restaurant, 161 Main St., Woolwich                                             
What: Hors d’oeuvres, cash bar, more than 100 auction and raffle items                                 
On Facebook: Benefit for Rusty Rancourt

Highlights of silent/live auction items:
— Two-night stay at Samoset Resort in Rockport, including round of golf for two with dinner and breakfast, value
$700
— Four-hour island cruise with four people aboard 46-foot
pleasure boat
— Early 1900s wooden loom, and mid-1940s wooden
magazine rack with index file storage from Bowdoin College
library, starting bid $200 for each
— Week stay for eight at Sherman Inn near Baxter State
Park
— 18 yards screened loam from Harry C. Crooker & Sons
— 14 cubic yards of crushed gravel or crushed stone and
custom-made toy dump truck by Ray Labbe and Sons
— Four Patriots tickets, $720 value
— Two Red Sox tickets, $180 value; four tickets $360
value
— Six-hour bass fishing trip with Troy Garrison
— 100 gallons of heating oil
— Paint job by R.J. Pelletier Inc., $350 value
— Free round of golf for four at Brunswick Golf Course
and Martindale Golf Course
— Two, four-day weekend tickets to Thomas Point Beach
Annual Bluegrass Special Sept. 3-6, value $300
— Photographs including aerials of Popham Beach and
BIW by Tom Jones
— Several gift certificates to local restaurants and businesses