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Eighteen year old Makenzie Jesse has had her fair share of hospital stays. Living with cerebral palsy, she has had over 12 surgeries in children’s hospitals across Canada and is often faced with long stays (sometimes over Christmas).<\/p>\n
It is this experience alone that has led Makenzie to help other children who are confined to a hospital bed rather than being in their own bed at home on Christmas Day.<\/p>\n
For the past 3 Christmases, Makenzie has been saving up her allowance, chore money, and birthday and Christmas money to purchase toys for children at the pediatrics unit at North Island Hospital in Comox Valley and The Salvation Army.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we were starting to get all of these toys I was getting so excited to give them to the hospital,\u201d said Makenzie. \u201cI remember I was in casts one Christmas and I was in pain, but all the people around me made magic at Christmas for me.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to make Christmas magic for kids.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Dec. 6th, Makensie brought nearly 50 Disney dolls, puzzles, board games, colouring books, and other fun toys to the new hospital and delivered them to the Pediatrics Unit.<\/p>\n
Her goal for next year is to donate 100 toys, doubling her total this year, and she hopes to get added support from the community.<\/p>\n
Makenzie will be back in the hospital this January after her 13th surgery, with possibly two more operations in 2018 after that. Despite her upcoming surgeries, Makenzie\u2019s thoughts are focused elsewhere, planning to help deliver more \u2018Christmas magic\u2019 to kids staying at Comox Valley Hospital now and in the future.<\/p>\n
Makenzie Jessie is this week’s Hero for Hope!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Eighteen year old Makenzie Jesse has had her fair share of hospital stays. Living with cerebral palsy, she has had over 12 surgeries in children’s hospitals across Canada and is often faced with long stays (sometimes over Christmas). It is this experience alone that has led Makenzie to help other children who are confined to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2644,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[14,16],"tags":[],"location":[],"class_list":["post-2643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-hope-stories"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n