LDL. A Dream Still Floating: How Faith, Community, and Compassion Are Carrying Will Roberts Through Cancer

RALPH, Alabama — For 14-year-old Will Roberts, the past few months have felt like a constant cycle of hope, setbacks, and hard days that no teenager should have to carry. The Ralph, AL teen has been battling bone cancer, and even as his family tries to protect small moments of normal life, the medical reality keeps interrupting.

But this week, something unexpectedly uplifting is taking shape — not as a “handout,” his mom insists, but as a gift of love from people who simply want to brighten a child’s world while they still can.

Will’s dream has always been clear: a pro-level bass boat — the kind of dream that lives in the hearts of kids who feel most themselves outdoors, where the world goes quiet and the only thing that matters is the next cast.

“I had to learn to stop telling people no.”

In a heartfelt message shared publicly, Will’s mother, Brittney, described how the Roberts family has been overwhelmed by support — and how she’s had to learn a lesson that didn’t come naturally.

She said a fellow Christian woman reminded her that refusing a blessing can also take away someone else’s chance to give. It wasn’t easy, Brittney admitted. Pride doesn’t disappear just because life gets hard.

So she’s been practicing a new response — simple, honest, and sometimes emotional: “Thank you.”

The fundraiser question — and why Brittney spoke up

Brittney emphasized she was sharing information “one time only,” not to ask for money, but to address confusion surrounding a fundraiser page created by a Christian organization.

According to Brittney, National Kidz Outdoors reached out after bass fishermen and outdoor organizations reportedly came together with the goal of gifting Will a new boat for Christmas.

The family had already planned to buy one themselves.

Brittney said she had even told Will in a past moment that while they might not have the cash sitting there, they had strong credit and were willing to make it happen.

But she says the organization wouldn’t allow it.

Instead, they wanted to do it as their mission: blessing disabled children without placing the burden on their families.

“Can it happen sooner?”

Then came the kind of sentence that changes the entire mood of a home.

After Will’s most recent PET scan, Brittney said the family learned the cancer had spread drastically. With the future suddenly feeling more uncertain, Will’s father, Jason, asked if the boat could happen sooner — not out of greed, but out of urgency.

That’s when the family learned the fundraiser was still about one-third short of the total needed.

Jason offered to cover the rest himself, Brittney explained — but she says the organization refused, because their goal wasn’t to collect money from the family, but to lift something off of them.

A painful twist: the fundraiser was questioned

Brittney also shared a difficult detail that added stress during an already fragile time: the fundraiser page was reportedly questioned and even reported by some who weren’t sure it was legitimate.

She named Mrs. Carol Clark as the person who created the fundraiser for National Kidz Outdoors, describing her as someone with “a heart for the Lord.”

Brittney said Mrs. Clark even attempted to have the page promoted through a Facebook sponsor who follows Will’s journey — but was told she would have to pay to have it promoted.

That moment, Brittney implied, was a reminder of how complicated the online world can be — and how quickly good intentions can get tangled in suspicion.

So Brittney made her reason for speaking very clear:

She wasn’t asking for anyone to give.

She was trying to confirm legitimacy and protect the people who were trying to help.

“We can cover it ourselves.”

In a statement that surprised many readers, Brittney said the family is not in a position where they need donations to finish the boat.

She explained that money raised locally by The Meat Locker (crediting Neal Hargle) was originally intended for a used truck for Will when he turns 15 in about two months.

Now, the family says they’ve decided to use that money instead — to close the gap and finish funding Will’s boat, covering what the organization couldn’t raise.

And she asked people to understand this distinction:

Will isn’t receiving the boat because the family asked for more.

He’s receiving it because people have already shown love — and the family is choosing to direct what they already have toward making Will’s dream real.

The line that hit hardest — and made people cry and laugh at once

Toward the end of her message, Brittney delivered a blunt, almost disarming promise about when the family would ever ask for help.

She said they would never ask for financial assistance unless they reached a point where they could no longer provide the bare necessities for Will and his sister, Charlie.

And then she added an intensely human moment — the kind of raw honesty that makes people feel like they’re hearing a real mother, not a “story”:

As long as she can still do things like color her hair, get Charlie’s nails done, enjoy a margarita with Mexican food, or use her “mad money” on Botox, she said she won’t ask for anything.

It wasn’t meant to be flashy.

It was meant to be clear.

Gratitude doesn’t mean entitlement. And receiving love doesn’t mean demanding it.

Another setback — and a hospital rush

Even as the boat story brought a rare flicker of joy, the reality of Will’s health hasn’t stopped.

The update noted that over the weekend, Will suffered another setback and was rushed to Children’s of Alabama. The Roberts family, like so many families in this situation, is living on the edge of “we don’t know what comes next.”

That uncertainty is its own kind of exhaustion.

Not just physical.

Emotional.

Spiritual.

And yet, Brittney’s message wasn’t written like a plea.

It read like a mother trying to hold two truths at once:

• We’re terrified.
• We’re grateful.
• We’re still here.
• And love still matters.

Why this boat matters more than the boat

To the outside world, a bass boat can sound like a luxury.

To a 14-year-old boy who loves fishing — who’s fighting through pain, hospital visits, and the mental weight of serious illness — it can represent something deeper:

• Freedom
• Normalcy
• A reason to look forward
• A piece of life that still feels like “Will”

Sometimes the most meaningful gifts aren’t about the object.

They’re about what the object restores.

A few hours of laughter.

A future moment to imagine.

A memory that isn’t made in a hospital room.

A community holding a family up

Brittney ended with what felt like the heartbeat of the entire message: gratitude.

Not just for money — but for prayers, encouragement, and the way people have “loved their family so well.”

And now, the community that has followed Will’s story is doing what people do when they don’t know how to fix something this big:

They’re showing up.

They’re sharing support.

They’re reminding a family that they aren’t walking through this alone.

And they’re trying to get a dream onto the water — while there’s still time to enjoy it.