Alicia Hays shares her birthday bounty with Same Day Surgery nurses, from left, Barbara Smith, Alicia, Victoria Masters-Konopasek, Asha Grover, Stefanie Weseman and Karen Jones. Alicia asked friends to give her stuffed toys that she could donate to kids at the hospital. | | BIRTHDAY GIRL GIVES AWAY HER GIFTS
Alicia Hay of Hood River celebrated her birthday by giving away her gifts. Pretty unusual for a brand-new eleven-year old. What's even more unusual, this is the third year Alicia has asked her friends to come to a party, but to bring stuffed toys for kids at the hospital, instead of fun stuff for her. Alicia and her mother, Terri Russom-Hay, presented a large, decorated box with the toys inside to Providence Hood River's Same Day Surgery nurses.
"We have kids coming here each week for dental surgery and other procedures," said staff nurse Stefanie Weseman. They are pretty nervous about being at the hospital and feel better right away when we give them a special toy to hold and take home."
Alicia read about the birthday gift-giving in a Girl Scout magazine and decided she would make that part of her celebration. She was about to turn nine, and repeated the gesture for her tenth and eleventh birthdays. Asked if she missed getting a bunch of presents from her friends, Alicia shyly said, "No, not really. I like make other kids happy."
In an odd twist of fate, last fall Alicia and her dad rushed to the hospital's emergency department after receiving word that her mom had been in a car accident. The worried and frightened girl found herself on the receiving end of gift-giving when one of the ER nurses brought her a soft and cuddly stuffed bear.
|
