Illinois High School Students Hold Fundraiser for Little Girl with Brain Cancer

The family of a six-year-old girl battling brain cancer recently received a $1,000 check from students at an Illinois high school, who held a fundraiser for the child by collecting spare change.

Six-year-old Maggie DeVries is fighting an inoperable tumor on her brain stem, the Patch reported. Unfortunately, there is no cure for her cancer, ABC Chicago noted.

Maggie’s mother, Erin, told the outlet:

We don’t want her life to be cancer and being in the hospital. We want her life to be horseback riding lessons and cheerleading and dance class and being wrapped up in love by our community and her family, and, because of you guys and things like this, we’re able to do that.

Students in the Key Club at Oak Forest High School (OFHS) in Oak Forest caught wind of DeVries’s battle and decided the child and her parents, who are alums from the school, would be the beneficiaries of their “Pennies for Patients” fundraiser, according to the Patch. The Key Club established donation boxes outside of classrooms where students could donate.

“We do a competition of which second hour can raise the most money, and so, this year, Miss Galloway’s class, which is standing right here, they dominated everyone,” Key Club leader Gary Andruch told ABC Chicago. 

In total, the high school students raised in excess of $1,000. 

“We really bought into the idea that every little bit helps,” one student told WFLD. “So we all we also wanted to do the best we could ….  Just to provide some special moments for a little girl, so her memories aren’t just hospitals and doctors and [she can] get some great memories of life.”

According to the outlet, Erin told the students:

It’s just special to me that you guys thought of us and we’re not even in Oak Forest anymore and you still thought of our family and understanding you collected change for us, which is crazy. Then you reached that big number with change that sounds like a lot of effort. You’re all so young and amazing and I just really, really, really appreciate it.

Erin noted that Maggie would be treated to a shopping spree thanks to the generosity and enthusiasm of the pupils at OFHS, according to WFLD.

“So my hope is that we get as many good days as possible with Maggie, and that they’re good days for Maggie; whatever can get us good days for Maggie, where she’s having fun, is all I can hope for,” Erin said, according to ABC Chicago.