EAST TROY, Wis. — It looked like a major emergency response. But the only emergency was to make sure some special toys got delivered to the MACC Fund Center at Children’s Hospital.
A month ago, we introduced you to Mary Schroeder, an 8-year-old with cancer. She asked if the community could help other children with cancer by donating to the MACC Fund’s Center for Cancer and Blood Disorder’s toy closet.
“We saw that the toy closet was empty,” said Mary.
“A lot of times kids are going multiple times a week for treatment and they are doing really hard things. So a toy is very helpful when kids can receive that,” said Jennifer Schroeder, Mary’s mother.
Mary’s dad is a Waukesha Firefighter. We learned about her story from the Waukesha Assistant Fire Chief Joe Hoffman who told us the department had been rallying around Mary during her cancer battle. Mary said the only thing she wanted to do was help other kids with cancer feel better. So she put out the call to you in our story the community responded.
“We raised over $4,000 and that’s not including the Amazon packages that came every day with gifts,” said Jennifer.
The cash was turned into both toys and gift cards. Friday, five different fire departments including the City of Waukesha, Town of Waukesha, Vernon, Mukwonago, and East Troy showed up in the rain. They loaded up boxes filled with hundreds of toys into the fire trucks.
“There are rigs from all over the area. We are family, this is what we do and we support our family,” said Lt. Dan Nottling. Waukesha Fire Department.
Then the fire crews loaded up Mary into a truck and drove her to Children’s Hospital to deliver all the toys to the MACC Fund Center. Mary’s nurse was there to get the toys along with Mary’s neighbor, Thomas. He is a 5-year-old who is also a cancer patient at the MACC.
“It is just incredible,” said Lori Williams, Thomas’ mother. “I know how much this means not only for the kids but for the parents. Because these toys not only bring joy to the kids but when you can see your kid having a moment of happiness during a really hard time, that means everything, as a parent.”
“We had no idea that we were going to have the outpouring that we did. The support. It was non-stop,” said Jennifer.
Even though there are hundreds of items, the MACC Fund center says this will only last them a few months. You can still donate either to Mary’s Amazon list hereor directly to the MACC Fund.
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