Mississippi teen fighting cancer finds strength in faith: ‘This is the road God’s given me’
Published 10:24 am Tuesday, August 6, 2019
- Photo by Gracie Byrne Madeline King sports the T-shirt she’s selling to raise money for meal vouchers for parents of patients at Blaire E. Batson Children’s Hospital. The shirt reads “Grace,” referencing Ephesians 2:8.
At Batson, parents can receive up to two free snacks a day. King was intrigued and wanted to help in any way she could.
“She was very inquisitive,” said her mother, Beth.
On the car ride home from Jackson to Brookhaven, King kept asking about the snacks and suggested they do something to help.
She hatched a plan and raised funds to pay for snacks for one hall of the hospital for a month. Her next fundraiser did even better, and she was able to provide 10,000 snacks — enough for parents to enjoy throughout the hospital for a month.
King partnered with Harmony Baptist Church — where her father, Owen King, is pastor — to help reach her goals and as she’s grown older, she’s made bigger impacts with her fundraising.
In April, King got a call from a volunteer at the hospital about selling T-shirts. Her plan was to take the profits from the shirts to pay for vouchers for parents so they could enjoy meals with their children, rather than snacks while their children ate.
The fundraiser has been a huge success.
“That just exploded. Everyone wanted a shirt,” Beth King said.
Only two weeks after that, the 15-year-old was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and it had spread to her lymph nodes. Her father had been the first to notice the knot on her neck. The Kings took their daughter to a doctor who made the diagnosis.
“It’s just the Lord’s way,” Beth King said. “We never would’ve thought we would be in the spot other people at Batson are in.”
Nearly $4,500 has been raised from the T-shirt fundraiser. In fact, it’s been so successful that it’s gotten to be too big for the Kings to handle in their current situation.
