Daughter Going to Disney World After All

Donations override dad's nixing of Make-A-Wish trip
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 20, 2012 4:50 PM CDT
Cancer Patient Going to Disney World After All
McKenna May, lookin' cool.   (Gofundme.com)

A little girl who battled leukemia and won may be going to Disney World after all. Four-year-old McKenna May was ready for the trip when her dad nixed it, saying the Make-A-Wish Foundation should only help kids with 6 months to live—not cured kids like McKenna, the Sentinel-Journal reports. So the fundraising kicked in: Mom Whitney Hughes left collection jars around Bowling Green, Ohio, while a bank, gofundme.com, and the Sentinel-Journal opened drives. The goal: $3,500. The loot: more than $13,000.

"I thought it would travel by word of mouth," says Hughes, who was astonished by the outpouring. "We told her we were raising money, but she doesn't know how." A few comments from Sentinel-Journal donors are telling:

  • "I know that is seems like an arbitrary number, but it is the amount that I had set aside to take a vacation with a loved one ... but life had other plans for us, sadly," wrote a soldier in Afghanistan who donated $650. "This seems like a good way to honor that."
  • "I am sufficiently disappointed by the actions of her father that I would like to contribute to her trip to Florida," wrote Palm Springs, Calif., reader.
  • "I'm a 45-year-old cancer survivor, and I have an idea what that little girl went through to be 'free and clear' of cancer ... and frankly, it sucks," wrote another donor. "Her father should be ashamed of himself."
Click for the full article, or make a donation. (More cancer stories.)

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