Maggie's Mission remembers young cancer patient with gift boxes for hospitalized kids
KING OF PRUSSIA, Pa. -- A child is being remembered 16 years after she died of cancer, but her legacy lives on in volunteers packing boxes for sick children recovering in the hospital.
"She was a spunky little thing," Barbara-Jo Achuff said of her niece Maggie.
The child was 2 years old and full of life when she was diagnosed with brain cancer. Achuff remembered hearing the news.
"Just heart-wrenching," she said. "The family took on the challenge and the journey with such courage."
Maggie later lost her battle in 2008, when she was only 4 years old. To honor little Maggie, her family and friends decided to support other families who were dealing with the same pain. Today, the child's legacy lives on because of something seen by her aunt, who was a doctor at the same hospital.
"We noticed other families that would come into the ICU or be admitted into the cancer unit that didn't have very much at all," Achuff said.
So to help those families, Maggie's family helped launch Maggie's Mission at the Love Works Resource Center in King Of Prussia, with good friends Katie Searfoss and her father, George, who is president of the resource center.
"We started to put together love boxes, gift boxes to make sure that every child that was going through a long-term illness would have a box and know that they are cared for," George Seafoss said.
Now, volunteers from across the Philly region come in several times a month to pack boxes with donated books, toys and other gifts. Maggie's Mission co-director, Nan Huber, delivers the boxes to little ones being treated at Nemours Children's Health and the King of Prussia campus of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
"So that they know that they're not battling alone," Huber said. "That there's somebody out there thinking about them, wanting them to smile, wanting them to have a little bit of normalcy while they're fighting this medical monster."
For that, Achuff is grateful for how her niece is being remembered.
"Wish we still had her around, but that there's some families that are feeling supported because of her means very much," Achuff said.
Maggie's family was part of Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation, which funds research and helps families who've received a cancer diagnosis.
CBS Philadelphia is proud to partner with Alex's to help families like Maggie's.