If you’ve eaten at Sal y Limon in Vancouver over the last year, then there’s a good chance your food was prepared by 24-year-old Abraham Aguilar. He’s a BCIT student, here from Mexico and he’s worked at Sal y Limon for almost a year. He’s a superstar in front of the grill and a favourite amongst the staff, so you can imagine how devastated and shocked we all were to learn he had been diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. He was shocked too. He’d only gone to the doctor because of a slow recovery from an injury received after a fall, but was immediately admitted to VGH to begin an aggressive chemotherapy treatment and likely a bone marrow transplant. He’s there now, and when he leaves he will continue with outpatient treatment for another two years.

 Abraham (drinking from the beer balloon) and his brother David at VGH.

Except for his younger brother David, who also works at the restaurant, he’s all alone here in Canada, so his Sal y Limon family has decided to step in, at this desperate moment, and provide whatever support we can. The restaurant will be holding a fundraiser day on Tuesday, March 28th where all the restaurant’s profits from the day will be donated to the fund we are setting up for Abraham. Abraham’s job is his main means of support and it will probably be months before he is strong enough to return. So our aim is to raise around $24,000, in order to pay for Abraham’s rent and other expenses for as long as possible. The treatment is expected to last for around two year and will involve several rounds of chemotherapy. These treatments will leave him weakened and with a compromised immune system.  The recovery process will be long and slow. We want to be sure he isn’t distracted by money worries and can concentrate fully on getting better.

 Abraham (third from the right) with his Sal y Limon family

The restaurant has many loyal and regular customers whom we consider part of our wider family and whom we thought might be interested in supporting Abraham as well in his battle. As a result, we have set up this page to give people an additional way to help Abraham out.

Abraham is smart, hardworking and above all, a class act. We know he has a great future ahead of him and want to thank you for your support in making sure he has every chance to achieve what he set out to do when he came to Canada.