As Olivia Harlan Dekker, Sam Dekker prepare for birth of their baby, their charity work for kids with cancer takes on new meaning

APPLETON - As a sideline sports reporter, Olivia Harlan Dekker knows a little something about streaks, and the one she has going with the Children’s Cancer Family Foundation of Northeast Wisconsin is especially dear to her heart.

Last week, she flew to Wisconsin from Istanbul, Turkey, where husband Sam Dekker plays in the Turkish Basketball Super League, so she can emcee Saturday’s Gold Ribbon Gala.

It’s the biggest fundraiser of the year for the Appleton-based nonprofit that provides financial assistance and free events to lift spirits for families with a child with cancer. This is the fifth year for the night out, which gets a Kentucky Derby theme this time around, and the fifth year Harlan Dekker has hosted.

When she says the event is back in a big way this year, she’s talking mostly about its return as an in-person event at Poplar Hall after the pandemic forced it to go virtual the last two years, but she also can’t help but point out the obvious.

“I’ll be 35 weeks pregnant the night of the gala,” Harlan Dekker said. “That’s cutting it close, but I’m so glad I’m still able to do it. Much later and I think my doctor would’ve said no, I need to be home. I’m just so glad to not break my streak and not miss a season.”

The couple is expecting their first child, a son, in May. If you want to make people in Wisconsin smile, just tell them there’s a potential future basketball star on the way with Dekker in his name and Bob Harlan as his great-grandpa. It's a slam-dunk.

Sam, a Sheboygan native and former Wisconsin Badger, is in his seventh season as a professional basketball player — four seasons in the NBA and three overseas. Olivia, the daughter of well-known sports announcer Kevin Harlan and granddaughter of former Packers president and CEO Bob Harlan, does NFL and college football sideline reporting and hosts the “Unleashed” podcast with Yannis Pappas for BetMGM.

The address of the Dekker family residence has changed many times since they were married nearly four years ago in a Door County summer wedding, but it’s their family ties to Wisconsin, the Children’s Cancer Family Foundation included, that ground them.

In lieu of wedding gifts in 2018, the couple asked people to donate to CCFF, promising a signed thank you note for anyone who donated $50 or more. They hoped to raise $15,000. The final tally was more than $65,000.

MORE: Olivia Harlan on Sam Dekker, their wedding plans and Door County summers

MORE: Aaron Rodgers to travel to Switzerland in May to learn about watchmaking 

Now as another milestone in their life together approaches, they are once again thinking of the local families whose lives have been upended by a pediatric cancer diagnosis. They’ve come to know many of them through CCFF’s annual Strike Out Cancer Day with the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers at Neuroscience Group Field at Fox Cities Stadium in Grand Chute, where a chance to meet Dekker is part of a fun day out at the ballpark.

As expectant parents, the couple finds it impossible not to have a new perspective for what those families go through.

“We are expecting a little boy, and I just pray to God, one, when he’s born that everything is perfect — 10 fingers, 10 toes, great lungs, great kidneys, everything — and then after that just that he stays so healthy," Harlan Dekker said. "We’ve gotten to see a lot of these kids year after year, lose their hair, get so thin, they’ll come back in a wheelchair some years, they’ll be walking some years.

“You just want to do everything you can to help them, and you also pray you’re never in their shoes. Becoming a parent puts a whole new spin on it and makes me more motivated to help people who get this horrible news that their child has cancer. I can’t imagine anything worse in the world.”

Harlan Dekker has had a rotating roster of Gold Ribbon Gala co-hosts over the years. She shared duties with former Green Bay Packers wide receiver James Jones at the start and with Dekker the second year. She tapped her friend Bridget Linton to help her out the last two years when the event went virtual but still reached its $100,000 goal each year.

That money was more needed than ever for families dealing with both cancer and a pandemic, as travel became more difficult, expenses like gas more costly and some parents lost their jobs. Gala organizers had to “hustle harder than ever” to fundraise but the community stepped up.

“I’m always so blown away by how amazing the people in this part of the country are,” Dekker said. “It makes me really proud to call this home.”

Linton, an on-air personality in Cleveland who has a 7-year-old nephew with cancer, will once again join Dekker for this year’s event. The two have been friends since they met 10 years ago on a flight to the Miss Teen USA pageant. Linton was Miss Ohio and Dekker Miss Kansas.

The centerpiece of the night is a live auction stacked with big, sports-centric items that can make for some heated bidding.

Among this year’s packages: a Door County getaway with a round of golf for four at Horseshoe Bay Golf Club, a Sheboygan adventure package with a Lake Michigan fishing charter; court time and private basketball lessons with Dekker, an autographed Aaron Rodgers jersey and four courtside seats for the Milwaukee Bucks. As is tradition, the Harlan family is throwing in its four Packers tickets behind the home bench on the 40-yard line at Lambeau Field for a 2022-23 regular season game, along with an autographed AJ Dillon jersey.

Harlan Dekker is working from Sheboygan this week ahead of the gala but will then fly to Kansas City, Kansas, to the home she and Dekker have there.

“I have to give birth to this baby at some point,” she said, laughing.

Their timing, she admits, leaves a little something to be desired. The baby’s due date falls right when Dekker’s playoffs start in Turkey, but the plan is for him to fly home to Kansas City a day or two before the birth. He’ll likely have to leave the day after to play in another couple of games.

They went back and forth on whether they should have their son in Turkey, but it would be a month before he could get his necessary shots in order to fly internationally.

“We figured it was easier to get Sam back and forth than to get a newborn back and forth, so we’re going to make Sam do a little extra legwork, but he’s not going to miss it for the world,” Harlan Dekker said. “Now we just need to hope this baby doesn’t come early, because if he comes early, that throws off my whole schedule.”

Having the baby born closer to home also means Bob Harlan doesn’t have to wait to meet his third great-grandchild.

“Let’s put it this way ... I think Grandpa Bob will be very happy with the name,” she said, giving full approval for any potential spoilers. “We are doing some family names, so I think Grandpa Bob will love the name.”

The couple are looking forward to spending the summer where they always do, in Door County and Sheboygan. His offseason and her maternity leave means plenty of time to dote on the newest member of the family.

"We are so looking forward to just spending time on Lake Michigan with both our families and kind of savoring this chapter," Harlan Dekker said.

For Riggins, the couple’s very Instagram-worthy dog, it’ll be a chance to get used to the idea of not being the only baby in the house. It's going to be an adjustment. Harlan Dekker has tried to talk to him about it, but he's been purposely ignoring her growing belly.

He stays with Dekker’s parents when the couple are in Turkey, but it’s always hard to leave him behind so you never know ...

“Next year, we could be this traveling circus bringing a newborn baby and a 60-pound husky overseas," she said. 

Gold Ribbon Gala

What: Kentucky Derby-themed evening with big hats, live music, cocktails and southern-inspired hors d’oeuvres to benefit Children's Cancer Family Foundation 

When: 5:30 p.m. registration, 6:30 p.m. program Saturday

Where: Poplar Hall, 141 S. Riverheath Way, Appleton

Tickets: $100 general admission per person, $125 reserved per person or $1,000 for a table of eight

To make reservations or donate: ccffnew.org/gold-ribbon-gala

Contact Kendra Meinert at 920-431-8347 or kmeinert@greenbay.gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @KendraMeinert.