Chalk murals dot Blue Point Preserve for William's Warriors fundraiser

Holding a piece of golden yellow chalk, Haley Jenner, of Bayport, crouched down to embellish a frame around their mural of a bunny witch taking flight.

The 22-year-old artist's whimsical mural was one of about 100 lining the winding path at Blue Point Nature Preserve on Saturday during the ninth annual William's Chalk the Walk fundraiser.

Each September, the event transforms the trail into an open-air art gallery to raise money for William's Warriors, a nonprofit created in memory of William Schultz, a 7-year-old from Blue Point who died of complications from brain cancer treatment in 2017.

Jenner said they were inspired by the Schultz family's resilience and "taking the darkness and pain of losing a child and turning it into something that helps the community."

Participants purchased empty 4-by-4-foot squares for $25 and entered raffles to raise money for the nonprofit's mission of improving the lives of children undergoing cancer treatment.

The nonprofit provides arts and crafts kits to pediatric cancer patients at Stony Brook Children's Hospital, NYU Langone Hospital-Long Island and Cohen Children's Medical Center.

"When a child gets diagnosed with cancer ... you're ripped from your world," said Margaret Schultz, the nonprofit's executive director and William's mother. "You're thrown into this antiseptic, hard environment and you're faced with trying to get through the days, and it's scary."

The art supplies and activity book can offer the child a creative outlet, a distraction and a tool for processing their feelings, Schultz said. Both Margaret and her husband Jim are art educators.

The nonprofit's other focus is pediatric cancer research, which Schultz said is "woefully" underfunded. Part of the proceeds will support cutting-edge research led by Robert Wechsler-Reya at Columbia University's Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Their research focuses on medulloblastoma — the kind of tumor William had and the most common malignant brain tumor found in children — according to the lab's website.

Saturday's event raised over $13,000 for the foundation, Schultz said, $10,000 of which will be donated to research. The nonprofit also plans to donate $2,000 of their profits to the new Ronald McDonald House in Stony Brook, which offers accommodations to families with a hospitalized child and is slated to open in 2027, Newsday previously reported.

Saturday's summerlike weather inspired many chalk beach scenes. One teenager swirled fur on a Ninetales from Pokémon while a family collaborated on Derpy and Sussie from the smash hit movie "Kpop Demon Hunters."

While Tierney, 9, and Torin, 5, worked on the characters, their mom, Bonnie Chavious of Bayport, joked that they had seen the movie "about a billion times" this summer.

"It's a very small town, so it's nice to see the community get behind one of our own," she said.

Adding ghosts in front of a haunted house, Laura Pantusco, of Port Jefferson, said she began creating chalk murals during the pandemic to boost morale at Stony Brook University Hospital, where she works as a child life specialist.

"It brings back a piece of childhood," she said. "That playfulness that's in every single one of us."