From left: Charles Baillargeon, two nurses from the Community Oncology Program of Saskatchewan unit, and Keegan Isaac pose after Isaac presented a cheque for $11,650 to the COPS centre at Battlefords Union Hospital in North Battleford. The money was raised through a concert Isaac organized in Meota in memory of his late mother, Michele Isaac, who died of cancer. (Submitted)

By Kenneth Cheung

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Jan 21, 2026 | 5:11 PM

A verse from the bible helped a mother face cancer. Now, etched onto a small plaque on a chemotherapy chair in North Battleford, the same quote is quietly read by other patients beginning their own cancer treatment.

For Keegan Isaac, the passage, Philippians 4:6–7, is inseparable from his mother’s memory — and from the decision that led him to turn music, grief and community support into something lasting inside the Community Oncology Program of Saskatchewan (COPS) unit at Battlefords Union Hospital.

Isaac was 19 when his mother died in October 2023 after years of living with cancer. She had first been diagnosed when he was three years old. She fought aggressively, went into remission, and then saw the disease return in 2020. Throughout those years, she spent countless hours receiving chemotherapy at the hospital’s oncology unit, building close relationships with nurses and staff.

“That verse got her up in the morning,” Isaac said. “She prayed every single morning.”

Long before her death, Isaac had dreamed of becoming a big band singer. Since he was 14, he had imagined one day putting on a concert. That dream crystallized during a drive home from a show in Meota in 2023, when he decided that was where his first major concert would happen.

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His mother was there when the idea finally became real.

“She said, ‘I was going to tell you that you needed to do that,’” Isaac recalled. “We were 100 per cent on the same page.”

They talked about the concert often. Then she died.

Isaac said the idea faded under the weight of grief for months. But as the new year arrived, he returned to it — this time with a different purpose. He decided the concert would become a fundraiser, dedicated to his mother and to cancer patients in the region.

What mattered most to him was that the impact be local.

“I really, really focused on how can I create a strong local impact with this money and support cancer and cancer patients,” he said.

After months of reaching out to organizations, Isaac partnered with the Battlefords Healthcare Foundation, which supports hospital equipment and services. Together, they ensured the funds would be directed specifically to the COPS unit at Battlefords Union Hospital.

In August, Isaac staged his first big band concert in Meota with his group, the Itsy Bitsy Big Band. He titled the show My Kind of Town, adapting Frank Sinatra’s My Kind of Town to reflect the prairie community he grew up near.

He expected, at most, to raise $5,000.

Instead, the concert drew about 380 people and raised $11,650 — enough to purchase a brand-new chemotherapy chair for the unit.

“It was an incredible night,” he said. “I was just so blown away by the support of the community.”

The chair, which arrived recently, includes features designed to improve patient comfort during lengthy treatments, including additional warmth and massage. For Leanne Ducommun, executive director of the Battlefords Healthcare Foundation, the donation was both practical and deeply meaningful.

“What Keegan did was really incredibly special,” Ducommun said. “He honoured his mom by giving back in a way that’s going to support so many patients that are receiving cancer treatment close to home.”

Keegan Isaac sits on a newly purchased chemotherapy chair alongside healthcare workers at the Community Oncology Program of Saskatchewan unit at Battlefords Union Hospital in North Battleford. The chair was purchased with funds raised through a big band concert Isaac organized. (Keegan Isaac Music/Facebook)

She said receiving chemotherapy locally — instead of travelling hours to larger centres — makes a profound difference for patients and families.

“These treatments are long,” Ducommun said. “Having additional comfort in some of these chairs and having newer versions of them are certainly welcomed by the patients and their families as well.”

At Isaac’s request, the chair bears a plaque in memory of his mother, including her name and the Bible verse she lived by. Ducommun said honouring those wishes is a responsibility the foundation takes seriously.

“It’s really our honour to be able to honour those wishes of the donors and for their families and really ensure that their legacy continues on,” she said.

A new chemotherapy chair is shown inside the Community Oncology Program of Saskatchewan unit at Battlefords Union Hospital in North Battleford. The chair was purchased using funds raised through a big band concert organized by Keegan Isaac in memory of his late mother. (Keegan Isaac Music/Facebook)

(Keegan Isaac Music/Facebook)

Isaac describes seeing the chair for the first time as humbling.

“My contribution with this concert is a very, very small part of a much bigger picture,” he said. “There have been people that have contributed to the Battlefords Healthcare Foundation and people who have contributed to the COPS centre that I will never know their names and I’ll never fully realize all the ways that they helped to support my family.”

If his mother were alive, he said, she would likely shy away from the attention.

“She was a quietly very supportive person,” he said. “Always in the background.”

But Isaac hopes the verse beside her name will speak to others in moments of fear and exhaustion, just as it once did for her.

“I certainly hope that verse brings comfort to somebody,” he said.

From a single fundraiser built on a dream and a loss, Isaac’s band continued to grow. Since then, the Itsy Bitsy Big Band has gone on to be featured at the Saskatchewan Jazz Festival, held its first major Saskatoon concert at the Broadway Theatre, and expanded beyond its early beginnings in Meota.

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Kenneth.Cheung@pattisonmedia.com